Pepata di cozze, also called impepata, is the simplest seafood dish in Apulian cooking: mussels cooked in a pan with garlic, olive oil, cherry tomatoes and plenty of freshly ground black pepper. It is ready in 20 minutes and served hot, with toasted bread to mop up the juices.
Apulian pepata di cozze
Pepata di cozze, peppered mussels, is a typical dish of southern Italy and very easy to make in Puglia too. Simple but full of flavour, it is versatile: it can be served as a starter or as a fish main course, with slices of toasted bread. Garlic, olive oil, cherry tomatoes and pepper are enough to bring out all the flavours of the Apulian sea. As they cook in the pan, the mussels release their own natural juices, and that liquid is the most precious part of the whole dish.
Pepata or impepata? Same word, two ways of saying it. The dish takes its name from pepe, pepper: plenty of it, freshly ground, almost as important as the mussels themselves. Around Naples people tend to say impepata di cozze; in Puglia and much of the south, pepata di cozze. Same dish, same idea, a name that shifts a little from place to place.
The right mussels make the difference. In a dish this simple, the quality of the shellfish matters more than any other ingredient. The mussels of the Mar Piccolo in Taranto, with their sweet, briny flavour shaped by a unique balance of seawater and underground freshwater springs, are considered among the best in Italy for this kind of cooking, precisely because the recipe is so plain that any flaw in the mussel shows at once.
Ingredients
- 1 kg of black mussels
- 100 g of cherry tomatoes (in Italy, the small Pachino type)
- black pepper
- 3 cloves of garlic
- Apulian extra virgin olive oil
Method
In a tall, roomy pan, gently fry the peeled garlic cloves in plenty of extra virgin olive oil. Add the cherry tomatoes and the mussels, still closed and carefully cleaned beforehand. Cook over a high heat for 5-6 minutes, until the mussels open. Turn off the heat and serve hot, with a generous dusting of freshly ground black pepper.
- Ready in: 20 minutes
- Difficulty: easy
- Suggested wine: a dry white Gravina, served at 8-10°C
Pepata in bianco: the bolder version. For a perfect pepata, choose very fresh mussels and clean them carefully, removing every impurity before cooking. The “white” version, in bianco, leaves out the tomatoes and uses even more pepper and garlic, for a stronger, more direct taste: ideal if you like intense flavours and want to taste the mussel almost unfiltered. If you prefer to soften the dish a little, add a pinch of chopped fresh parsley or a squeeze of lemon at the very end.
Pepata di cozze is found all over Puglia, from simple trattorias to restaurants: a dish handed down from generation to generation, to which every family adds its own touch. It is a plain, direct tribute to the riches of the Adriatic and the Ionian, the two seas that wash the region. For more mussels, try our mussels au gratin, or go back to all our vegetables and starters.
