Sometimes the best holiday souvenir is an eating habit you bring home. NZ Herald Travel has shared a recipe for spaghetti aglio e olio with mussels — a dish that tastes like a coastal Italian trattoria but comes together with eight ingredients and about 20 minutes of actual cooking.
The premise is simple: classic aglio e olio (olive oil, sliced garlic, chilli flakes) upgraded with 400g of blanched mussel meat, plus lemon juice, parsley and a little Parmesan to finish. Because the mussels are already blanched, there's no shucking, no scrubbing beards and no agonising over whether they've opened. They just need 60-90 seconds in warm garlic oil to heat through — which also makes this a smart way to use frozen mussel meat.
The recipe's most useful tips are the ones home cooks often skip. Pull the spaghetti two minutes short of al dente and reserve a cup of the starchy cooking water before draining; that water is the magic that turns loose oil and chilli into an actual sauce. Pat the mussels dry before they hit the pan so they sear rather than steam. Cook the garlic low and slow until pale golden — two to three minutes, not the ten seconds most of us give it — then add chilli for just 30 seconds so it blooms without burning.
The final step is the one worth learning: pour in half a cup of pasta water and shake the pan for 30 seconds so the oil and water emulsify into something glossy. Add the pasta, toss, then splash in more water bit by bit until every strand is coated. Parsley, lemon, salt, pepper and grated Parmesan go in off the heat.
For travellers, this is exactly the kind of dish worth seeking out on holiday — mussels and pasta are staples along the coasts of Italy, Spain and France, often the cheapest and best things on a waterfront menu. And it's a practical reminder that recreating a holiday meal at home doesn't require a full pantry or a chef's technique. If you're staying somewhere self-catering in New Zealand or the Mediterranean, mussels are usually one of the best-value proteins at the local market, and this recipe needs nothing more than a big pan and a pot.
It works as a fast weeknight dinner, a low-effort date-night plate, or proof that your next trip's flavours don't have to stay behind when the holiday ends.
