Cozze Tarantine

By John, 1 November, 2020
Region
Italy
Description

Cozze TarantineTaranto is and industrial port city and naval base way south in Italy in the instep of the boot, facing North Africa. Its food is heavily influenced by that of nearby North Africa, as shown in this dish. With the layered aromatics and potatoes and other vegetables, the limited liquid and the slow cooking, this is clearly descended from the North African Tagine. In fact, the next time I prepare this, it will be in my tagine dish rather than the baking dish shown here.

It looks like a big dish, but it's not heavy and it's really good; the two of us ate the whole thing! 

Yield
4 Servings
Preparation time
1 hour, 30 minutes
Ingredients
1 lb Tomatoes
2 lb Mussels
1 clv Garlic
4 T Olive oil
12 oz Potatoes
8 oz zucchini
12 oz onions
2 T Pecorino Romano Cheese
3 Parsley sprig (chopped)
Instructions
  1. Boil a saucepan of water, to be used for skinning the tomatoes.
  2. Preheat the oven to 325.
  3. Slice the onions and potatoes thinly, and the zucchini less thinly.
  4. When the water boils, drop the whole tomatoes in for a minute or so, until the skins start to peel. Plunge them into cold water and peel the skins off, and then slice them as well. Chop the ends and save those.
  5. Put half the oil in a skillet with the sliced garlic over moderate to high heat, and add the mussels. Cook a few minutes until the open. Discard any that never open. Let the mussels cool. Save the cooking liquid.
  6. Brush the bottom of a baking pan with the remaining oil, and layer in the potato slices, then the onions, then the zucchini, then the tomato slices.
  7. Sprinkle the cheese over everything, and add salt and pepper as you feel necessary.
  8. Take each mussel, break off the empty half of the shell, and set it on top of the tomato slices.
  9. Add the remaining chopped tomato to the mussels, and the parsley.
  10. Pour in the juices from cooking the mussels, as evenly as you can.
  11. Cover tightly with foil and bake for an hour.
  12. Serve hot.
Notes
Consider cooking this in a Tagine.
Source
La Cucina Italiana: Italian Cooking