Coconut & Curry Mussels

This week I start a new job and a very new schedule. I am a nurse so my schedule changes often, but for the next 6 weeks I will be working 8 to 5 Monday through Friday, as well as working some nights at my other nursing job. This means I need hearty, healthy, and quick to make meals so I make sure that my husband and I can eat (who has a very busy schedule as well). Because of all of this, grocery shopping this week was a little different than usual and I am excited for the upcoming meals that I get to share with you.

For tonight’s dinner, I wanted to do something that we do not normally eat for dinner (or something that I have never made), since we are kind of celebrating my job tomorrow. While I was shopping, I saw mussels for sale so I bought 2 pounds (sounds like a lot but the actual meat of the mussel is not a lot). Since the rest of my grocery list had a lot of Thai and Asian inspired ingredients for the rest of the week, I figured I would get some extra use out of the things I had planned on buying.  So for this meal, I am using mussels, onion, garlic, ginger, curry sauce, coconut milk, fish sauce, lime, and cilantro.

First I sprayed a big pan with olive oil spray and put a sliced up onion in to sauté until soft (about 5 minutes).  After the onion was cooked, I added some chopped garlic and ginger paste and let that cook with the onions for a few more minutes. While this was in the pan, I rinsed the mussels and made sure they were all de-bearded and clean (I bought the pre-cleaned and de-bearded mussles but I just wanted to make sure). When the onions, garlic, and ginger are fragrant and soft, I added a jar of red curry sauce.  I do not like curry paste so in the international food aisle at the grocery store, I found some pre-made curry sauces that are healthy and taste delicious.  Because the sauce is already thick, I just let that warm through and mix with the other sautéed ingredients:

After the sauce is warmed through and mixed well, I add a can of light coconut milk and allow that to blend together.  (FYI – if you open coconut milk, it often separates in the can but that is normal ... no worries). Along with the coconut milk, I also added a tablespoon of fish sauce. I have never used fish sauce before and to be honest, I do not know if it specifically added something to the dish so if you do not have it at your store, do not worry about it:

Once the sauce is complete with all of these ingredients and is brought to a simmer, I added the mussels to the pan to waited for them to cook through (this takes about 8 minutes or so … I wasn’t really counting).  In order to know if the mussels are done, the mussels will pop open (the mussels that do no pop open need to be thrown away):

Since most of them had popped open, I added the juice of two limes to the pan, and then put the actual lime in the dish as well (obviously make sure the limes are cleaned well).  The reason I added lime is to give freshness to the dish, and a little extra flavor since there is no salt or any other spices:

After the lime is added and mixed around with the open mussels, I added a few handfuls of chopped cilantro (again for the extra flavor and freshness).  I picked through each mussel one by one to make sure they were all open and put them in my serving dish.  Although it was a lot of mussels to go through, I found about 6 that never opened so I am glad I took the time to do that.  Once the mussels were in my serving dish, I poured the leftover sauce over top and served the dish with naan whole wheat flatbread for dipping:

I was happy to make something for the first time, especially something that seems so complicated to do. The beauty about this dish is that it really isn’t complicated at all. Everything was done in one pan, mostly opening cans and jars, and a little bit of chopping, and some fresh ingredients which made for an awesome meal. My husband even asked to make it more often! To make it more of a complete meal, this can be served with or over brown rice to make it even heartier. Try making coconut curry mussels at home, or use a different inspiration for the sauce, and do not be afraid to try to cook something new… after all, being a newlywed is about doing and trying new things, especially in our Newlywed Kitchen.