Cavalock and The Miracle Mussels

Man, some days I really amaze myself. I been dying to whip up my own mussels meal ever since my London trip and then there was the visit to the local Brussels Sprouts. So when I started having more free time and doing my own stuff, I figured it's also about time I finally tried doing the mussels thing. Well OK, having a new saucepan in the kitchen also helped nudge me in the right direction. ;)

And how did it turn out? Damn! It was waaaay better than I expected it to be! I didn't follow any exact recipe. I just copied the technique, the ingredients were my own ...er...selection.

After getting rid of the mussels that were already opened and cleaning up the rest, there really wasn't much of the original 500g left, so I added in bout half dozen prawns. My little variation also used shallots instead of chives. The only thing that I think I did wrong was not chopping up the garlic really fine. I just smashed them with my blade.

The other secret ingredient was Japanese sake! I know some places use beer or whiskey, I figured why not sake then? I got a big bottle sitting in the fridge for like ages, yah, I was afraid that it could have gone bad or something but it didn't! Hah!

After adding like three big splashes of sake into the saucepan, I then toss in them mussels and prawns. Now I'm at that stage where I don't do no exact measurements no more, cos that's how I roll! (negative and negative and negative and positive equals negative, rite?)

Next comes the cream. I found this at a Cold Storage, I don't think FairPrice has it. Anyway, this is great and once again I just poured like a quarter of a cup in there. Then I turned up the heat for like three minutes. Once it starts bubbling, turn off it off, your kitchen ought to smell really, really good now.

The flavors were all there and the broth was fantastic, I think the cream made a huge difference. I almost cleaned it up with my multigrain buns. Everything was perfect, I was at first so afraid that the mussels would be bad or the sake would be bad, but it all turned out better than fine. I was thinking what made it taste so good, the sake? The cream? Good mussels? I dunno.

The whole thing took less than a half hour to prepare and I dare say it tasted better than the ones I had Brussels Sprouts but definitely not as good as the ones in the London. <^;^>