Steamed Mussels with Rosemary and Roasted Garlic Sabayon

I’ve never actually dined at The Herbfarm, but I’ve visited. During the ten minutes in which I attended culinary school in the ’90s, our class took a field trip out to the farm and restaurant. It’s a truly magical place which makes even me want to garden. When Jerry Traunfeld’s The Herbfarm Cookbook came out in 2000, I immediately bought it and read all of its amazing, creative recipes, and, naturally, never made any of them.

But here we are, at book number sixteen in our project, and I’m delighted to have finally cooked out of this book. We decided on Steamed Mussels with Rosemary and Roasted Garlic Sabayon, partly because I’ve never made a sabayon, and mostly because we love mussels and they’re very inexpensive here.

The sabayon was delicious, and super simple to make. You just take egg yolks, roasted garlic, the winey liquor from the mussels, and some lemon juice and whisk it all over a double boiler until it gets all smooth and rich. I don’t have a metal bowl, so I used a glass one. This slowed down the process, but fortunately I had some wine, and I don’t mind whisking. It’s very soothing.

Then the sabayon gets poured over the cooked mussels and you dive in! It’s SO good. The sauce is light but rich, and heady with the scent of roasted garlic. I’d make this every day if I thought I could get away with it. This is a dish where you need bread to wipe up the sabayon in the bowl. We didn’t have any, so we unashamedly licked our bowls. And we’d do it again.

Next up: David Tanis’ A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes