Orechiette pasta with peas and mussels

Ingredients for 4 persons

• 400 g of orecchiette pasta
• 500 g of shelled peas • 600 g of mussels • 1 large onion • 1 clove of garlic • 10 cl of brandy • 4 crostini bread • extra virgin olive oil • salt, pepper of Mulinello

Preparation

Boil half of peas for few minutes in salted water, drain and cool them immediately in a bowl with icy water. Collect them in a bowl and set them apart.
Meanwhile, in a pot with oil, slightly fry the finely sliced onion, add the other half of peas. Keep cooking on lively flame; sprinkle with two little dippers of warm water and cook for 30 minutes. Add salt and tune the taste as preferred, and then use a chinois for obtaining a puree. Remove from mussels the byssus, brush the shelves with a knife and wash them with care.
Put the molluscs in a large frying pan with some drops of oil, and let them open on a lively flame, covering the pan with the top. Remove the mussels from the frying pan and let them cool on a drilled plate; remove the molluscs from their shelves but reserve 16 mussels having the most beautiful shells to garnish the dish.
For preparing the sauce fry for a moment the mussels with a drop of oil and a clove of garlic, sparkle with brandy and let it evaporate. Add the mashed peas and let all flavouring together. Boil the orecchiette pasta in salted water.
Drain the orecchiette when they are "al dente" using a colander; complete the cooking spilling the pasta in the pot with the prepared sauce. Distribute warm orecchiette in each dish and top with a rain of peas previously reserved and a pinch of pepper.