Day 170: Thai mussels

In fairness, after work this evening, I did go in search of fresh mussels in two supermarkets north and south of the border but the best I could find were vacuum packed ones. All the fresh ones were sold out. I think the vacuum packed ones I did buy were already cooked too. Essentially, that meant that I didn’t have to do that whole repeated rinsing and scrubbing thing I did the last time I made mussels for this Challenge. I distinctly remembered how much of a task all the rinsing and scrubbing was but, alas, I was prepared for it much better this time round. Yes, all psyched up on a Monday evening for a bit of rinsing and scrubbing but all I had to do was snip the bag of the mussels with a pair of scissors. This time around, you see, I was making Thai mussels and here’s how I made them…

In a large saucepan, I added a can of coconut milk, chopped lemon grass, some nam pla, sliced scallions, soft light brown sugar and two packs of mussels. Once the mixture came up to the boil, I popped the lid on and let it simmer for 5 minutes. I then served with freshly chopped coriander.

The verdict…

Remember what I was saying in Day 169’s post that sometimes it’s good for Dear Husband to get a not-so-nice recipe so that he can appreciate the really good ones?! Well, that doesn’t always work in my favour because now that he knows how delicious the freshly rinsed and scrubbed mussels are, he wasn’t too impressed with the vacuum packed variety. Therefore, this recipe scored a very disappointing 5 marks out of 10; disappointing in that I seriously thought this recipe would get an 8 at least. Just re-read the post for Spanish mussels which was way, way, way long ago back on Day 19 of the Challenge.

Overall, this recipe was easy and quick. If you can’t get lemon grass then, according to Google, the grated zest of a lemon will do. Thankfully though, I actually do find it easy enough to get north of the border. Honestly though, I don’t know what I would do without Google as every day, without fail, I make a mental (sometimes Post-it list) of ten questions I want the answer to and Google obliges. The lemon grass question was no.10 for today. Good old Google.  Will I make this recipe again? No. I’m going to stick to the Spanish mussels thank you very much; you should too.