Besides washing under cold water, Do you clean the mussels when you're cooking them?

place the LIVE mussels in a bowl covered with water and salt for at least an hour, the mussels will spit all the sand inside them...Besides washing under cold water, Do you clean the mussels when you're cooking them?
I scrub the shells with a stiff brush, unless they are the frozen green kind from New Zealand, which are already cleaned.Besides washing under cold water, Do you clean the mussels when you're cooking them?
Mussels must be thoroughly cleaned and rinsed several times before cooking.





Wild mussels will need to be scrubbed with a stiff brush to remove any barnacles, sand or grit and their beard must also be removed. This can be done by giving the beard a forceful tug with your fingers and pulling it away or by cutting it off with a small and sharp knife.





Rinse the wild mussels several times but do not let them sit in water, as freshwater will kill them.





Farmed mussels will have already been prepared for cooking and it will suffice to just give them a quick rinse under a running tap of cold water.
I also saw the episode of Barefoot Contessa that Melissa C above me saw. However, soak them in the water with flour for a short period of time and THEN pull of the beards just before you are ready to cook them.


Pulling off the beard immediately kills the mussel, so if you do this first it will not eat/take in the flour water and therefore it will not clean out the sand inside the mussel.
I just saw on the Barefoot Contessa show on the Foodnetwork tv yesterday she scrubs them, pulls off their ';beard'; and also soaks them in water with a little flour to get the sand out from the inside of the mussels.


www.foodnetwork.com