mussels

Asparagus and fennel are strange ingredients to include in the cooking broth for mussels. I do not recommend them. Best, I think, to keep it simple: shallots, parsley, butter, wine.  My thinking here is that I do love wine cooked with butter and nearly anything with it. I like it as much as the mussels themselves. I was considering it a kind of soup, not just a steaming broth, and I wanted extra for later. And I wanted to experiment. 

Half this amount of butter was used, two ounces. But the entire bottle of wine was included. That is probably excessive for two pounds of mussels. 

Ordinarily tomatoes would be cooked with the broth, usually canned tomatoes, but my preference is to have them raw or barely cooked. So these were kept separate.