All posts tagged: mussels

Thai coconut mussel and kumara chowder

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This post was made possible thanks to Trident. To win a year’s supply of Trident products including their popular chilli sauces, noodles, coconut cream and milk, upload a photo of your own sweet chilli creation to their Facebook page here. Need a recipe to inspire you? Read on… Back when I was a poor uni student, I indulged in mussels as a culinary upgrade from instant noodles. I would steam a kilo of mussels in a pot, add a little sweet chill sauce and coconut cream and serve with bread to mop up the juices. It was a treat. Delicious. Affordable. Minimal effort. Sweet chilli sauce goes so well with mussels and ever since, I’ve kept sweet chilli sauce on hand as a pantry staple. NZ green-lipped mussels are giant compared to other mussels. Some are as large as my hand…though I admit, I have quite small hands. Because they are so big, they have enough strength to hold tightly to their beards making them hard to pull out. My hack is to remove the …

Auckland Seafood Festival 2016 – double pass giveaway

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2016 has started with a bang. Like just about everyone else, I have some dietary intentions for the year. I was feeling like were were eating too much red meat last year, but instead of saying, “I will eat less red meat” I’ve been saying, “I will eat more seafood”. The thinking is different, the end result is the same. So far in 2016, I have eaten yakitori scallops, whole grilled squid, salt pepper squid, herb-crusted pan-fried salmon, bagel with lox, yakitori salmon, mayo-cheese mussels, prawn pasta, Vietnamese pancake with pork and prawn, prawn fried rice, prawn and fish butter curry, fish tacos and a fish burger. Not bad considering we’re only 15 days in. Here’s to 2016 being a seafood-fuelled year and hopefully I’ll will cook or eat a seafood dish that I’ve never cooked or eaten before. With Auckland anniversary coming up, we can look forward to even more seafood at Auckland Seafood Festival. Running 5 sessions over 4 days at Halsey Wharf which is downtown between the Viaduct and North Wharf. Thanks to …

Baked Mayo-Cheese Mussels

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We dined with friends at a local yakitori restaurant last week. Although one of our favourite restaurants in Auckland for their tasty morsels of individually selected skewers, it had been a long time since we had visited and it wasn’t quite the same. My favourite dish, scallops wrapped in bacon were disappointing this time and the other dish I was looking forward to (chicken hearts) was unavailable. They did however, have a special on the blackboard: 4 mussels for $5. These were baked, cheesy, creamy, a little sweet and very different to how I usually cook mussels (steamed with sauce added). I don’t know exactly what was in the dish but I figured there was mussels, cheese, mayo and perhaps something sweet for balance. Boom I wanted more. The Koala and I split a portion and 2 mussels each is just a tease. So when our Foodbox delivered a kilo of mussels yesterday, I took it as a sign from the universe that I should try and recreate it at home. This recipe is deceptively easy, very quick, and uses just …

Make A Chowder (Salmon Head and Mussel Chowder)

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Salmon. I love it raw. I love it cooked. I love it smoked. I love it poached. I love it pan fried. I love it baked. I love it steamed. It is creamy, fishy and super rich. Everything I’ve read says that salmon makes too strong a stock. I’m not afraid of a strong fish stock, but if a strong stock makes you queasy, this recipe is not for you. I’ve wanted to make a chowder for the longest time and a quiet, Autumn weekend at home last month was a good time for it. You can easily spend too much on seafood for a chowder. Sure, it will be delicious, but what about making a delicious chowder using cheaper ingredients? I picked up 2 salmon heads for cheap at my local asian market. Fish heads are usually cheap and I’ve been eyeing these up for a while now, wondering what to do with them. To prepare, make sure the gills are removed – they usually are. Cut the fins off with a pair of …

Maketu Pies

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I spied the Maketu Pie shelf in the deli section at the supermarket the other day so I bought 2 of their mussel pies. “Kiwi mussels cooked in a beautiful creamy cheese and parsley sauce then encased in our handmade, flakey golden pastry.” I feel like I’m a late bloomer when it comes to these pies. The few people I’ve spoke to all said they love Maketu Pies. I popped these in the oven and served with a simple green salad with tinned beetroot slices. I really enjoyed this pie. Full of flavour without all the salt. Store bought pies often have so much salt in them you can’t taste anything else. I guess it’s just as well because sometimes the ingredients in pies aren’t things you want to be tasting. I like the fact that these pies have a very short shelf life. As mussels should be. I’ll be buying these again for an easy quick dinner. I actually think the 2 for $6 “special” is their permanent pricing. More on Maketu Pies including a …

Seafood roundup

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I would love to live in a tiny fishing village for a while and buy fresh seafood from the fishermen as they come in from sea. Here is a collection of seafood plates I’ve whipped so far this year: What do you do when you haven’t been shopping in a while and only have cheese, potatoes, peas…and then find half a bag of prawns in the freezer? You make cheesy potato gratin with pea puree and sweet chili prawn skewers of course! Mussels in coconut cream and sweet chili sauce. Feeds 2 hungry adults for less than $5! Add a $10 bottle of red and you’ve got yourself a date 🙂 One day I’ll figure a way to avoid photographing the steam coming off hot food…without having to wait for dinner to grow cold. Creamy prawns with rice and green salad and beetroot. Easy and decadent. Saute half a diced onion and a couple of cloves of chopped garlic in some butter. When those are cooked, add enough prawns for 2 and cook until just done. …