Thai Seafood Adventure!

Mateus got me this awesome cook book for Christmas this year. Its called “The Cooks Book of Intense Flavors”.  I highly recommend it to people who are looking for a little more variety and experimentation in their kitchens. Basically each recipe starts with a description of 3 flavors that go awesome together. 1 dish in particular stuck out to me because it featured lemon grass, which I see in the store all the time but never know what the &*%$ to do with it. I thought you could just chop it up and stick it in some stuff – tried that, it’s a no-go.  It’s possibly the hardest, most fibrous veggie I’ve ever attempted to eat.

So anyway, a recipe for Thai Style Mussels was in the book, but while shopping and cooking I modified a few things to make up for ingredients I didn’t have, and things I wanted etc.  It came out great, and was definitely a new flavor for us. I would never have stuck shellfish and coconut milk together on my own.  It was really easy, and took about 40 minutes start to finish. So here’s MY version, which Mat and I polished off in one sitting (that may have been unnecessary, but I don’t really care!).

Ingredients:

1 lb mussels - cleaned

¼ lb shrimp (I peeled mine, but you could leave the shell on)

½ lb some kind of white fish (I used cod, but probably would recommend tilapia since the cod pretty much fell apart completely)

2 stalks of lemon grass – chopped into 1 inch pieces

1 inch knob of fresh ginger – chopped small

3 shallots minced

Handful of basil (I forgot to buy it, but I bet it would only improve the dish

1 cup dry white wine

Tsp of saffron threads

1 can of coconut milk

2 tbs olive oil

Salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes (or whole chilis) to taste

Directions:

In a medium pot, put the coconut milk, lemon grass, and ginger to a simmer for about 10 minutes.  Then turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let it sit for 10 more minutes (about as long as it takes to do the next steps).

In a large pan (big enough for all your fish), heat up olive oil on medium and cook shallots until soft. Once soft, add the wine, saffron, and red pepper flakes.  Simmer liquids for about a minute.

Strain the coconut milk mixture into a bowl.  Add all the fish to the pan and then pour the coconut milk over all the fish.  Cover the pan, and shake it a few times over about 5 minutes to help the mussels open. After the 5 minutes it up, remove the lid, make sure everyone is cooked, throw some basil on top, and serve it up!  We just dipped crusty bread into ours to soak up the juices, but I bet it would be great over jasmine rice as well. The cookbook describes the juice as "liquid heaven" - not sure i would go that far, but it was pretty delish.   

These photo's aren't the greatest, but the food was!