Well that turned out well! After two weeks in a row of purchasing meat from my local mega-grocer only to discover the chops rotten the next day when I went to prepare them, I decided to give up on the whole "buy all food in one place" method I've been using for years, so last week it was the butcher for the first legit time, and today it was the giraffe monger for the first time in ages.
Cooking fresh, live mussels for the first time taught me a couple things: 1) restaurants rip me off totally to hell when it comes to mussels and 2) knowing I have just killed a bunch of creatures in order to eat really ups the value and savor factors for me.
The Recipe:
Coconut-Curry Mussels
Prep Time 25 minutes (20 mins to scrub mussels, 5 mins to cook)
Total Time 25 minutes
Ingredients
1 tablespoon butter
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons minced peeled fresh ginger (from a 1 1/2-inch piece)
1 can (13 1/2 ounces) unsweetened coconut milk
1 1/2 tablespoons green or yellow Thai curry paste
2 to 3 pounds mussels, rinsed and scrubbed (discard any that do not close tight when rinsed and scrubbed)
fresh lime juice to taste
Directions
1. In a large pot with a lid, melt butter over medium-high. Add garlic and ginger and cook until fragrant, 1 minute. Whisk in coconut milk and curry paste and bring to a simmer over high. Add mussels and stir to combine. Cover and reduce heat to medium-high. Cook until mussels open, 5 minutes, stirring once. (Discard unopened mussels). Remove pot from heat and stir in lime juice
Serve over rice.