A week into recovery from jaw surgery, you hit a frustrating plateau. You wean yourself off the opioids, the bandages come off your face, you’ve managed to take a shower and you’re a bit more mobile. You graduate from the baby spoon to an adult-sized one! But at this point the baby food starts to get really tiresome, you find yourself endlessly craving baked goods and the cabin fever sets in. Add to this the rotten New York weather we’re experiencing at the moment, and I can’t get vacation daydreams out of my head.
Three years ago, my family and I spent a few weeks traveling around Portugal (you may remember my very thorough and enthusiastic write-up from earlier this year). And over Christmas break when we were all together once again, beginning to plan our upcoming trip to southern Italy, we found ourselves reminiscing about our Portuguese adventures. In fact, most of us could recall and describe in shocking detail specific meals we had eaten there that we think about to this day. Duck confit, swordfish carpaccio, and pork with clams – the food from that country consistently exceeded our expectations with its freshness, unexpectedness and uniqueness.
Inspired by those culinary experiences, I bought two cookbooks, and have had the chance so far to cook from one (I’ve got a lot of cookbooks and magazines to cook through, guys). And one of my absolute favorite recipes ever comes from The New Portuguese Table– this unbelievable mussel curry that is seriously impressive, beautiful on a plate and extremely tasty.
If curry in Portuguese food sounds weird to you, it shouldn’t – the Portuguese were big-time seafarers, if you think back on those long-ago history classes, and colonized their own piece of India, which they ruled out of Goa. And so, curry powder made its way halfway around the world and into Portuguese food, and then straight onto your tables (if you take my advice and make this recipe).
This is a great dish for company. Mussels ain’t cheap and you’ll need 6 pounds of them, so maybe save it for some people you really like (the recipe serves 6). It also takes a little work, because you’ll need to shell most of the mussels and stir them into the curry, reserving just some of the intact ones to top your plates. Also, if your kitchen doesn’t have great ventilation it might smell like curry for awhile afterwards. All worth it, I assure you! The curry is sweet, spicy, briny and bright- and just perfect served atop a steaming pile of white rice with a smattering of chopped cilantro.
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 large yellow onions, chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 3 medium tomatoes, peeled, cored, seeded and chopped
- 2 to 3 tablespoons curry powder, to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- Pinch of ground cinnamon
- 6 lbs. mussels, scrubbed, debearded and rinsed
- 1 1/2 cups dry white wine
- 2/3 cup heavy cream
- Piri-piri sauce or other hot sauce
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 5 cups cooked white rice
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat until it shimmers. Drop in the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute more. Stir in two thirds of the tomatoes and cook for 2 minutes. Sprinkle in the curry powder, ginger and cinnamon and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, until 1 minute. Set aside.
- Discard any mussels that feel heavy (which means they're full of sand), have broken shells or don't close when tapped. Pour the wine into a roomy pot. Clatter in the mussels, cover tightly and cook over high heat, shaking the pan occasionally, until the shells pop open, 7 to 10 minutes. Toss out any mussels that refuse to open, then pluck all but 18 from their shells. Strain the mussel liquid.
- Add 1 1/2 cups of the mussel liquid to the skillet with the tomato mixture, then add the cream and bring to a boil over high heat to thicken slightly. If you prefer a brothy curry, add more mussel liquid; if it's a creamy curry you're after, reduce the mixture more. Season with piri-piri sauce, salt and pepper to taste. Take the pan off the heat and stir in the shelled mussels.
- Spoon the rice into six bowls and top with the mussels. Garnish each with mussels in their shells, and shower with the remaining tomatoes and the cilantro. Pass the piri-piri sauce at the table.
Notes
https://www.thekitchenchronicles.com/2018/01/09/curried-mussels-mexilhoes-com-caril/
