Pasta with shellfish is a common dish throughout the coastal towns of Italy and southern France. The recipes tend to be quick and easy to pull together, though, as with most simple dishes, the devil is in the details.
To start our linguine with mussels recipe, we made a flavorful cooking broth of onions, fennel, tomatoes, and wine. We added canned diced tomatoes, which had a far better flavor than all but the best fresh tomatoes. We knew that mussels coo...