No need to be a MasterChef or an experienced cook; anyone can make this easy baked tahong in oven toaster or microwave recipe. All you need is a simple oven toaster (or microwave) and a few ingredients to satisfy a craving for mussels.
Ingredients and Materials:
Mussels
Cheese
Garlic
Butter or oil
Oven toaster or microwave
Cheese doesn't have to be the same as the image below. Any processed cheese brand can be used base on your preference.
The ideal combination should be minced garlic and shredded cheese in butter or olive oil but I just dislike biting into garlic while eating so I ditched that. 😅
Bahong versus Tahong
Quite unbelievable but there's such a thing they call as "bahong" or fake tahong. These are supposedly smaller and darker than the real ones. Most mussel farms just discard them but they still make their way to wet markets and are sold at a lower price. So take note of the size when buying.
Directions for Cooking:
1. Clean the live mussels first by soaking them in fresh water for about 15 minutes.
2. Slightly cook the tahong in briskly boiling water. This will make it easier to open the shells in half and discard the ones which don't open at all.
Traditionally, mussel shells which remain closed after boiling are discarded because they are most likely already dead before cooking. Some folks pry them open though and consider them edible if they don't emit a foul smell upon opening. It's up to you whether or not to throw those. Moving on...
3. You can start grating the cheese while waiting for the water to boil.
In place of the cheese grater/shredder, you can use a fork to shred the cheese.
4. Line up the half cooked mussels neatly on the oven toaster pan. I made use of all space available to cook as many as I can in one go.
Be careful when handling hot shells if you decide to pre-cook them in boiling water.
If you're using a microwave instead of an oven toaster, you can use the same type of pan or any type of microwavable container.
5. Add enough cheese topping (or as desired) on each mussel. Avoid accidentally dropping cheese on the pan itself as it will be burned fast while cooking.
6. You can pre-heat the oven toaster or microwave while prepping the cheese. This will make it faster to bake the tahong later on.
Mine was a handy microwave brand so I just set the setting to high for two minutes. The oven toaster is even easier because there are recommended timer instructions on the door itself.
7. Serve while it's hot! Be careful when handling, of course, so do use oven mitts or anything to protect your hands while serving.
Tada! Here's the final product, or at least the first (somewhat charred) batch. The drinks are just for presentation.
Oven Toaster versus Microwave
So which appliance is better? I personally prefer the over toaster. After pre-heating, the see-through glass door enabled me to monitor the baking progress. Less than 5-minutes is all it takes to melt the cheese and bake the mussels (since it was already slightly cooked earlier). Cooking time will be obviously longer if the tahong weren't pre-boiled.
It will be easier to just turn off the oven toaster too in case the cheese melts faster (or already burned). That happened for the succeeding batches since the toaster is hot enough from the previous set.
It took longer to bake using the microwave but the possibility of charring the cheese is at least lower.
Due to the enhanced community quarantine, please practice social distancing when going out to shop at the grocery or market.
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