Thai Style Mussels

It is summer, which means that there are new mussels again! Zeeland, a province in the southwest of the Netherlands provides one of the most tasteful mussels of the world. Strangely, most of these mussels are exported, probably to countries that have a higher standard of foodculture than we have here.

There are quite a lot of foodies in the Netherlands, but unfortunately the average Dutch person cares more about the price of the food than the quality...

When we go to our southern neighbours (Belgium), we suddenly find food with a much higher quality, even in the supermarkets. I love living in the Netherlands, but I really find this a disadvantage!

Although, when you look a little further than your local supermarket, you can find great food here as well, you just have to look a little harder.

But luckily we could get our hands on some of the Zeeuwse mussels, and they do taste great!
I usually simply cook them in white wine with finely cut vegetables and herbs. That way the taste of the mussel itself is the star of the show and I love it this way. However this week I wanted to experiment with our beautiful mussels and made up an Asian version.

I am not sure if I will ever be able to make the simple mussels again and get a smile from my husband again. He absolutely loved these experimental Thai mussels, and if he could give a rate above the 5 out of 5 I gave these mussels, he would absolutely take that advantage.

Thai Style Mussels

Ingredients 4p:
2-3kg of Zeeuwse mussels
1 onion
3 cloves of garlic
3 small red chili peppers, fresh and/or dried (chiliflakes)
1/2 of a lemon, juice and zest.
2cm of ginger
1 spoon of oil
200ml of coconut milk
1 hand full of cilantroleaves (and stems)

Throw away all mussels with broken shells. Put the rest of them in cold water. (I usually put them in a blocked sink full of water). Leave them for a while.

Finely chop the onion, 1 clove of garlic and the peppers. Cut the other cloves of garlic in half, and make some chunks of the gingerblock. Lightly fry the onions in a little oil in a highwalled pan until they are translucent. Add the garlic, chili peppers, lemonzest and ginger for a few minutes. Pour the coconut milk in the pan, add the lemonjuice and the cilantro and heat it up.

Throw away all mussels that haven't closed in the cold water. When in doubt you can give them a little knock on the shell. If they close, they are fine, if not: throw them away. Cook the mussels in different batches in the coconut mixture. Throw away the ones that haven't opened up and serve steaming hot!

Score: 5 out of 5, or more if it were up to my husband...
Tip: Serve with some nice bread for dipping the heavenly sauce, or make it even more oriental by serving noodles. Also serve it with a fresh salad, I served it with a delicious Vietnamese salad I plan on telling you about later this week.
Time: 15 minutes
Amount of time vs waiting: 50/50 when you include stirring once in a while in the waiting period.
Degree of difficulty: Very easy. However, you will have to pay attention to selecting the good mussels, even if you buy the best quality mussels. When in doubt, throw them out!
Ideal for: Romantic dinner, dinner party, summer/autumn meal.

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Spicy Champagne Shrimp & Spaghetti

A Celebration!

This week for the first time I made a meal inspired by a recipe from a blog. Through Pinterest I started to look around at other foodblogs and I found Rasa Malaysia! I am really excited about that. Although I'm new at blogging and reading blogs, I am almost a pro in buying cookbooks and cooking magazines and Bee from Rasa Malaysia is amazing... She has so many recipes that look and sound so delicious that I inmediately want to start cooking.

I love asian food, but I don't often cook it. I will definetly try to make some of her asian food one day, but with a husband training for the marathon there was a need for a pastadish tonight. And I found this wonderfull fusion recipe which of course I altered a bit to my liking and to our spirit! Afterall today was a milestone in his running 'career', he ran half a marathon today! And believe it or not, when he arrived home I couldn't even tell. He looked like I look when I have to hurry home from doing groceries, half a kilometer away...

One of the things I love to do in life is to celebrate small victories, so this victory of my husband needed celebration. Champagne had already been chilling in the fridge, and this was the perfect moment for a festive pastadish. Inspired by Bee's Spicy Shrimp Pasta recipe I made this heavenly champagne dinner for two, and I don't think my husband will be running too far tomorrow...

Spicy Shrimp Spaghetti & Champagne
A celebrative dish
Inspired by:
Rasa Malaysia's Spicy Shrimp Pasta
Author: Bee Yinn Low

Ingredients for 2p:
150g spaghetti
Splash of olive oil
2 spoons of butter
3 cloves of garlic
1 tomato
200g of peeled shrimps
1 lime
1 glass of champagne (or cava)
1 teaspoon of chili flakes, plus a little more for the finishing touch.
A bunch of flat parsley
A bunch of cilantro leaves
Salt
Fresly grounded pepper
Some grano padano (or parmesan)

Boil your spaghetti in salted water, save some water for the sauce. Finely chop the garlic. Chop the tomato in small pieces.
At the end of the cooking time start making the sauce by putting oil and butter in a wok and add the garlic. Be carefull not to let it brown as it will then turn bitter. After a minute add the shrimps and fry for 1-2 minutes.
Cut the lime in half, use half for the sauce and slice the other half in parts for decoration.

Add the champagne, chiliflakes and tomatoes to the wok. Let it cook for another minute. Add the juice of half a lime, spaghetti and a little bit of the boiling water as well as the fresh herbs. Season with salt & pepper to your own liking. Plate up and make it look pretty by putting some grano padano flakes, shrimp, fresh herbs and chiliflakes on top.

Score: 5 out of 5
Tip: If you are not in a festive mood, don't want to open up a bottle of champagne, or you want to use this recipe on an ordinary day: a glass of white wine makes for a very nice dish as well.
Time: 20 minutes (if you buy already peeled shrimps)
Amount of work vs waiting: 3/4 work, 1/4 waitingtime
Degree of difficulty: easy
Ideal for: a celebration, pastadish, romantic dinner

Tomatoes and Pomegranate Salad

Let's knock on wood before and after I say this... This year's summer is wonderful in the Netherlands! We've had one rainy week, but most of the time it is a very lovely Dutch summer. Not too hot, nice and sunny and around 23-25c during the day, cooler at night. It is such a delight! Lot's of days for a BBQ...
I like to serve some fresh salads with a BBQ, especially when there is only meat on the BBQ.

So when my husband had a group of his friends over, and an only meat BBQ it would be, I served this tomato salad, which we all found to be delicious! It took me ages to make for such a big group, but it was well worth it!
It has a delicate flavour combination with all of the different tomatoes, the pomegranate and the oregano.
You'll have an almost meditative work cut out for you when you're starting this job, chopping and choppping and chopping more and more tomatoes... Carefull with getting the seeds of the pomegranate out, I made somewhat of a mess by splashing some of it's juices over my recipepage.

But hey, getting cookbooks dirty means they are being used, so all the better! Usually I also write myself notes on the pages I have cooked from. It was something my grandmother did as well, and it is a very nice surprise to find one of her old notes when I cook from the book I inherited from her. So, I started to do the same!

Tomatoes and Pomegranate Salad
Slightly addapted from:
Tomaten-granaatappelsalade
Plenty More, pg 15
Author: Ottolenghi

Ingredients 6-10p, as a side dish:
500g snack/cherrytomatoes red
500g multicolloured snack/cherrytomatoes
3 truss tomatoes
3 roma tomatoes (but choose any mix of good tomatoes you can find)
1 red paprika
1 red onion
1 pomegranate
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 teaspoon of allspice
A dash of white wine vinegar
2 spoons of pomegranate melasse
60 ml of olive oil
A small hand of oreganoleaves

Chop, chop and chop all tomatoes and paprika in small peaces of approximately equal size. Finely chop the onion, and mix the 3 of them together and set aside. Get the seeds out of the pomegranate and set aside.
Finely chop and rub the garlic into a paste. Mix it in a bowl with the allspice, vinegar, pomegranatemelasse, olive oil and a pinch of salt to make the dressing. Put the dressing over the tomatoes and gently mingle it.
Put the tomato mixture in a nice bowl, sprinkle the seeds of the pomegranate and the oregano on top and finish up with an extra few drops of olive oil.

Score: 4 out of 5 (When good tomatoes are available)
Tips: You'll need good tomatoes for this salad, otherwise all of your chopping isn't worth it. Although it is nice to have different colloured tomatoes, the quality of the tomatoes is more important. So skip all the other collors if neccessary.
Time: 60 minutes (or so? Kind of went in a meditative state and can't really remember...)
Amount of work vs waiting: High!
Degree of difficulty: Very low, it just takes a lot of time...
Ideal for: side dish, salad, BBQ, romantic dinner, dinner party

Quinoa Goddess Salad with Shrimps and Avocados

This spring I found a recipe in the 'Allerhande', a free magazine from the largest dutch luxury supermarket chain, Albert Heijn, inspired by a californian green goddess salad. Since then I've been cooking this frequently because I absolutely love it!
This week for the first time I actually made the original recipe, because usually I give my own twist to it, and it was great to eat the goddess again. Although I personally liked my own version with a different type of lettuce better... I will show you some pictures of that version the next time we'll be eating this superb salad again!
It is a whole meal kind of salad, no side dishes needed, but my husband likes some freshly baked (ok, baked-off, I don't have the time to bake bread during weekdays since we don't have a machine for it) with it.

It is kind of 'good weather food' but since I had my mind set on it, and groceries had already been done in better days, we ate it (and still enyoyed it) on a rainy day.
I really love quinoa, but with most of the recipes it is not to my husbands likings. This is one of the exceptions however, luckily for me because it became my 2015 favourite spring/summer meal.
I think it is the dressing that won my husbands hart over. The anchovis make it savory, there is some sweet from the mayonaise and sour from the lemonjuice but the combi with the chives and basil makes it a very special dressing that goes so well together with the shrimps and avocado. The texture of the dressing binds the quinoa together to give it a very nice sensation in your mouth.

I have just started blogging and I still have to find out how to make cathegories, but this one will end up in my old-time-favourite section for sure, so let's start!

Quinoa Goddess Salad with Shrimps and Avocados
Quinoasalade met avocado en garnalen
Allerhande 2015
Author unknown

Ingredients for 4p:
150g quinoa (black according to the original recipe, I've always used the regular version)
300ml vegetable stock
250g green peas
1 cucumber
Iceberglettuce sliced in fine pieces (I like it better with lambs lettuce)
4 anchovis
juice of 1/2 a lemon
4 spoons of mayonaise (which you can of course also easily make yourself when time is on your hand)
a big bundle of chives
2 hands full of basil leaves.
2 avocados
150g (or just a bunch) of peeled shrimps
salt & pepper

Boil quinoa in the vegetable stock for about 10 minutes with a closed lid. Put aside and let it cool down. Boil de green peas for 1-2 minutes and put in icewater or under cold running water untill it is cold again.
Peel and slice the cucumber in parts. Mix quinoa, lettuce, cucumber and green peas.

Finely slice the anchovis and mix it with the mayonaise and lemonjuice. Chop the chives and basil leaves. Mix half of the herbs in the anchovis-mayonaise. Add some pepper and salt if you wish.

Cut the avocados in small wedges. Put the salad in a bowl, dress up with the avocado and shrimps, add some of the dressing (give the rest on the side) and finish with the remaining herbs. Bon appetit!

Score: 5 out of 5
Tip: I think it's better with lambs lettuce, looks prettier as well.. Cooking the quinoa in a nice homecooked stock will make it so much tastier, you will hardly need any dressing if you want to have a slimmer salad.
Time: 20-30 minutes. Again, depending on your cutting-skills
Degree of difficulty: Easy
Amount of work vs waiting: High, you can do your cutting and gathering while you wake for your quinoa to cook and cool down.
Ideal for: Romantic dinner, family dinner, spring/summer meal, dinnerparty, lunch, salad

Moroccan Saddle of Lamb with Pomegranate Couscous

It was a beautiful Dutch summer evening, nice and warm, with a jentle breeze of cooler air blowing through the garden. These evenings are rare but precious, they last long and make for lovely nights sitting outside, enjoying pleasurable conversations with a good glass of wine and a luscious plate of food.

I was lucky to have already been doing groceries for a recipe I found in the Delicious. I had bought earlier this week. It had a lot of inspiring recipe's, but since it has been a long time since we've been eating lamb my eye fell on a lambchop recipe with pomegranate. Pomegranate is one of my favourite ingredients, when I have plenty of time to cook. When opened up, the seeds look like jewels, so pretty! And they have this nice fresh-sweet taste, that enlivens many savoury dishes. The only adverse of pomegranates is that it takes me ages to get all the seeds out. Maybe I'm not doing it the right way, but I often spent at least ten minutes or more to get all the little jewels out without mixing it with the inbetween whites.

Luscious our plate of food was!

Moroccan Saddle of Lamb with Pomegranate Couscous
Lamskoteletjes met granaatappel op z'n marokkaans
Delicious. augustus 2015, page 32
Author Valli Little

Ingredients for 2p (or more)
4 Saddles of lamb
2 Spoons of ras el hanout (moroccan spice-mix)
80ml Olive oil
200g Couscous
Zest of 1 organic lemon
1 pinch of salt
150ml chickenstock
60ml molasses of pomegranate
1 Spoonful of sugar
A bit of aluminium foil
1 handfull of freshly roasted and chopped pistachios
1 (or more) hands of freshly chopped mintleaves
Seeds of 1 pomegranate
2 teaspoons of rosewater

Mix 1 1/2 spoons of the ras el hanout with most of the olive oil, and mix with the saddles of lamb. Put it aside for 30 minutes.
Roast and chop the pistacchios. Take the seeds out of the pomegranate. Grate the lemonzest. Boile some water.
Mix the couscous, lemonzest, salt and the rest of the ras el hanout. Add 250ml of boiling water, cover with a dishcloth and put aside for 5 minutes.
Mix the stock, pomegranate molasses and sugar on a low fire and leave it on untill you have a slightly viscous fluid.
Fry the saddles of lamb on a grillplate, bbq or in an ordinary frying pan for 2 minutes each side and put aside, loosely packed in aluminium foil.
Stirr the couscous with a fork, add most of the pistachios, mint and pomegranate seeds.
Pour the juice of the lamb in the sauce, add the rosewater and the last spoon of olive oil.
Plate your couscous, put the lamb on top and finish with the sauce, and the extra mint, pistachios and pomegranateseeds.

Score: 4 out of 5
Tip: Nice change of taste for lamb, couscous also nice as a salad without the lamb. Could use more vegetables/herbs.
Time: Original recipe 25min + waiting for 30 minutes. It took me about 50 minutes, because a lot of the waiting time can be used for the preparation of the other components.
Degree of difficulty: Moderate
Amount of work vs waiting: Continuous work during waiting time
Ideal for: Romantic dinner, main course at a small dinner party, bbq