This is a very simple and beautiful dish. I love to prepare mussels with pasta – just make sure you buy fresh mussels. A good way to tell mussel freshness is by smelling them. They should smell like the sea and feel heavy, which means they are still alive with sea water in them. Also it’s good to know where they come from, so always buy from a reputable supplier. If they are picked from dirty water or if they grow on iron (such as an old ship wreckage or iron chains) they can be full of metal and not recommended for consumption.
The tomato sauce recipe here can be used as a base for more complex sauces, since it doesn’t have any additional flavours. You can add olives, capers, mushrooms, some ham or prosciutto, and rosemary or basil. If you don’t have fresh tomatoes you can use tinned. In Croatia, we serve this sauce with poached meat or just as a plain pasta sauce. If you don’t want to make the tomato sauce you can just use passata or crushed tomatoes, in which case allow just 15 minutes for cooking the sauce on low heat.