Recipes Steamed Mussels with Lemon and Bay Leaf 5.0 (5,784) Add your rating & review This incredibly speedy recipe is from chef Cathal Armstong's wonderful cookbook, My Irish Table. The mussels are steamed in butter and lemon juice with shallots and bay leaves, forming a flavorful broth. Be sure to serve them with crusty bread. Slideshow: Mussels Recipes By Cathal Armstrong Cathal Armstrong Dublin native Cathal Armstrong is an eight-time James Beard Award-nominated chef and co-founder of nine Washington D.C. area restaurants and bars, including the celebrated Restaurant Eve in Alexandria. In 2011, he was honored as a "Champion of Change" by the Obama White House. Food & Wine named Armstrong one of our 50 Hall of Fame Best New Chefs in 2015.Experience: Cathal Armstrong's began his professional culinary journey as a waiter turned pinch-hitting cook at a Dublin pizzeria. By age 19, he had ditched his college studies to pursue a full-time career as a chef, eventually moving to Washington D.C. in 1990.Armstrong honed his craft in the kitchens of New Heights, Gabriel, Vidalia, and Bistro Bis before embarking on his first personal venture, Restaurant Eve, in 2004. Building on the resounding success of Restaurant Eve, he co-founded The Eat Good Food Group with his wife, Meshelle, expanding his holdings to include Dublin chipper Eamonn's, speakeasy PX, epicurean food hall Society Fair, American seafood restaurant Hummingbird, pan-Asian restaurant Kaliwa, and Irish pub Maddie and Eddie's. Cathal's dedication to culinary excellence, farm-to-table ethos, and health advocacy has been featured by The New York Times, BBC News, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Oprah, and Martha Stewart Living, among others. Armstrong is a leader in the local sustainable food movement, recognized by Washingtonian magazine with its Green Giant Award and with the National Restaurant Association's Neighborhood Community Award. When he is not in one of his kitchens, Cathal can be found working out six days a week in a Taekwondo studio. He won the 2015 US Open Taekwondo Championships and the USA National Taekwondo Championships in 2014 and 2013.Education: Cathal studied computer programming at a university in Dublin. Food & Wine's Editorial Guidelines Updated on February 28, 2014 Print Rate It Share Share Tweet Pin Email Total Time: 25 mins Yield: 4 to 6 Ingredients 4 pounds mussels, scrubbed and debearded 1 stick unsalted butter, cubed, at room temperature 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice 4 shallots, minced 4 fresh bay leaves Salt Freshly ground pepper Crusty bread, for serving Directions Heat a large pot. Add all of the ingredients except the salt, pepper and bread and cook over high heat, shaking the pan and stirring occasionally, until the mussels open, about 7 minutes. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Discard the bay leaves and serve right away with crusty bread. Suggested Pairing Light-bodied French white. Rate it Print