The Rietvallei family is especially fond of seafood – great with Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc or Chenin Blanc! This dish is simple to prepare and extremely tasty.

Before we get started, here are a couple of useful tips:

• Look for mussels that are tightly closed. It’s a sign of freshness.
• Before you cook them, you need to clean them.  Place the mussels in the sink under running water. Pick up each mussel and check that it’s firmly closed. Discard any mussels that are open – that’s very important. Scrub each mussel clean with a stiff brush to get rid of any barnacles, pulling off the hairy ‘beard’ that sticks out from the shell, if it has one.
• Keep the cleaned mussels under the running water. It’s really important that the water stays moving over the mussels, but that they’re not soaking in it. If you leave them soaking in tap water, they’ll die and that’s not what you want.