1 kg of black mussels from Taranto or any other Italian region;
2 cloves of garlic;
1/2 glass of extra virgin olive oil;
1 fresh chili pepper (if you like);
Salt to taste
400 grams of tubettini (I used rigati);
10 cherry tomatoes (Piccadilly or Cherry) cut into 4 parts;
Fresh parsley to taste;
2 tablespoons of sauce if you want a redder and more full-bodied sauce.
STEP
First, we clean the mussels, remove the external filament and scrape the shells well under running water;
Despite the simplicity of the recipe: most of the time is required to open the mussels which is done strictly raw, but if we can’t do it we open them on the fire, in this case, as soon as we see that the valves open we immediately remove them from the fire;
We absolutely must not throw away the mussel water, it is precious for the success of the recipe;
Then we take the mussel water from the pan and filter it with the help of a strainer, inside which we place a tight-meshed cotton cloth, which will serve to retain all the impurities and set aside;
Now we remove the mussels from their shells, leaving some aside with the shell for the final decoration;
Take a large enough pan, pour in the oil, add the garlic, the chilli pepper cut into slices;
When we see that the garlic cloves have browned, we remove them;
Now pour the washed and quartered tomatoes into the pan, the two tablespoons of sauce, a handful of chopped parsley and let it flavour for a few minutes, add the shelled mussels, season with salt, add a glass of mussel water and cook for 10 minutes;
The sauce must not reduce too much, it must remain quite soupy;
Meanwhile, cook the tubettini in plenty of salted water mixed with the remaining mussel water that we filtered;
Drain the tubettini al dente, keeping aside a little of the cooking water, then transfer them to the pan with the mussels;
We continue cooking over a high heat, stirring to blend the flavours well;
A few minutes before the pasta is ready, add the unshelled mussels that we have kept aside to the sauce, and add a generous handful of chopped parsley;
