I'd thought about sharing this recipe for many years, as it is the one that I grew up with, being raised on a small farm in the Coromandel Peninsula, which has now become one of the premium New Zealand Mussel growing areas after the Marlborough Sounds.
When I was growing up these mussels were found on just a few of the many rock off the small community that I was my home. Papa Aroha may not be the famous Bay of Islands, but we have a really nice collection of them just offshore from the farm, and they were our fishing grounds for a wide range of seafood.
Wild green lip mussels would grow on rocks and reefs around the islands and provided a constant supply for our small community. Now, there are commercial mussel farms taking advantage of the super-clean water and the mix of nutrients that enter our waters. A nice benefit of the farms is that there is a super abundance of wild mussels still around all the islands, and you can collect them with a bit of effort. The wild ones do get a lot bigger, but that works well for this recipe as well.
I spent many a visit home with my father going out to these rocks, jumping off the boat and pulling off as many as I could. If the weather was going to be bad on the days when I arrived, Dad would arrange with his mates who owned the farms for a bag of them to be ready for pick up.
Why, cos it was and remains my most favourite taste of home, so whenever or however I came back to New Zealand, there would be mussels ready for me. My dad has now passed, but the memories of gathering them so many times are the fondest of returning home. Taking the boat out to the island and just relaxing and looking back at where I came from.
So to the recipe. This was passed down from my father's mother, who lived down the hill from us, and my mother took over and adapted to the food processor (for the quick version). When I knew that mum only had a few months left to live, I worked through about 5 batches of this until it passed her test and was deemed acceptable. She had been cooking these for years for all the family, and I just ate them without asking.
There is also a super-secret ingredient within them that changes everything.
So, nearly every recipe for New Zealand mussels fritters will use cooked/steamed mussels. That is not how this works.
We ALWAYS opened them raw. There is a specific technique that my muscle memory will never forget, but sadly, unless you live in NZ, you won't get them raw.
So this recipe is currently a bit rough as I have not tested it recently, but it will work, and I'm going to give my mum's food processor version. The mince you own mussels and mix the ingredients in is better, but you need a manual mincer for this.
Thaw the frozen New Zealand Green Lip mussel out and KEEP ALL the juice that comes off the. Thats so important to the flavour. So let's say 5 kgs of in the shell. Put them into a food processor with about a cup of flour, and then 1 teaspoon of baking powder (we use good self-raising). Then the secret, 1 teaspoon of ground ginger (not fresh, as many recipes call for). Pulse and add the saved liquid until you have a fritter-pourable batter. Basically, a bit thicker than a pancake and a pikelet. You want it to hold its shape.
Cook in a good pan with a nice layer of oil until they become crispy, then serve with lemon.
No salt is required, as that comes from the juice of the mussels. We always had fresh shelled ones, but if you have the juice from them, throwing it out gives you the same effect.
You do want a good level of oil in the pan to get a golden, crispy result.
This is how my family has made these for over 100 years now, and they are always the ones everyone wants again. Using raw mussels and my grandmother's secret ingredient makes these something so special, and it only comes from Papa Aroha in New Zealand.
Please enjoy.
