Currying Your Mussels

It was Friday, I had not only finished work for the weekend but also for the next week as well. As it was the end of the week I had a little more time to cook than usual and I hit upon making something that was rich and substantial as well as being fairly easy to prepare.

I dusted down my Le Cresceut dish and added enough olive oil to it to cover the bottom. I put Van Morrison's mellow masterpiece Poetic Champions Compose on the CD player and set about dicing two red onions, two cloves of garlic and one celery stick as stately strings and saxophone from the stereo permeated the kitchen.

I turned the heat on the hob and warmed the oil before adding the freshly prepared vegetables to the Le Cresceut dish and cooking them on a medium heat for around five minutes until they began to a hazel brown colour. I then added two bay leafs and the leaves of two fresh thyme sprigs together with half a tablespoon of curry powder which I made sure was stirred into the vegetables.

I had not been able to acquire fresh mussels as there were no local fishmongers available so I instead used a pack of precooked mussels in white wine sauce I had acquired from the Co-Op and dumped them into the dish. I turned up the heat further and put the lid on the Le Cresceut dish; this stopped excess heat escaping the dish and allowed the mussels to cook fully.

After about four minutes I checked the mussels and was pleased to see that all of them had opened, this meant they were all edible as those mussels that do not open during cooking cannot be eaten unless you want to make yourself ill.

I plucked four sprigs of fresh coriander from the plant growing on the kitchen window sill, cut the sprigs up into small pieces and added them to the mussels together with a tin of coconut milk obtained from Waitrose. After lowering the temperature and then cooking the dish for another two minutes it was ready to serve the dish.

The fresh coriander and thyme made all the difference to this recipe and gave the rich tasting mussels a distinct taste. The coconut milk also added well to the richness but on balance I think next time I will only use about half a tin to stop the dish becoming too runny. Despite this however if you like your seafood this is a dish you must try.

Cooking them fiercely in the dish meant the mussels all opened and could be eaten. 

Ready to eat- a little bit too much coconut milk however still a very tasty meal