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Quantity required:

• You only have to take off seaweed, crepidulae, barnacles, balanes (byssus threads) from the shells. Usually they are already cleaned when you buy them. Then you'll wash the mussels under fresh water.
• All the shells which are open must be discarded!
  

• 1 kilo mussels per person,
• 1/2 onion or 1 shallot per kilo of mussels,
• 40 g butter per kilo of mussels,
• parsley,
• fresh ground peper,
• no salt, the mussels are already saltetd.

This recipe is very easy to do !

Slice the onion/shallot and the parsley. Put them in a large pan with the butter, add the mussels and heat. Put a cover on the pan.
After two minutes mix everything with a spoon and cook again. The all thing should not cook more than 10 minutes.
When it's cooked put the mussels and the juice in a very large bowl and eat !

The use is to eat mussels with you hands : in your right hand take an empty shell and use the two parts of the shell as a pincer to take the mussels out of the other shells. You also need a spoon for the juice which is delicious !

• As with all cooked bivalves, be careful : throw away all open mussels (before cooking) and don't eat the ones which are not open (after cooking) ! One says it's a sign they were dead before cooking... and nobody knows for how long !
  
• This is the French way to cook "moules marinières". Italian people avoid onion with fish, crustaceans and molluscs. Their "alla marinara" which means as in French the sea-men's way will be with garlic and tomato.
• Do not mix "marinière" with "marinées" ("marinata" in Italian). Mariner means to marinate. You'll find an exemple with the recipe of the Marinated scallop.