Ingredients: · 1 kg Mussels – washed and de-bearded - if you can use the lake Mussels not the sea cleaners · 3 tomatoes – finely chopped · 1 tablespoon garlic · 1 ½ heaped teaspoon curry powder · 1 ½ heaped teaspoon fennel powder · 2-8 finely chopped green chillies · 1 level teaspoon salt – to taste · 1 handful chopped coriander · ¼ block of butter · Extra virgin olive oil · 1-2 glasses dry white wine · Juice of ½ - 1 lemon – depends on how much you like tangy flavours
Method: Heat a (preferably) heavy bottomed sauce pan, add a few good glugs of olive oil and the butter, gently stir and melt the butter. Add the garlic and green chillies and fry on medium heat until the garlic becomes golden, add the curry powder, salt and fennel and fry on a low heat for about 15 seconds, enough to, yep you’ve guessed it cook the spices then add the tomatoes and fry on a high heat for a few minutes then drop the heat to medium and stir every so often until the tomatoes have reduced and the oil has separated. It would be easy to add the wine with the tomatoes and reduce but you wont get that concentration of flavour when you reduce the tomatoes first. Reducing the tomatoes changes the flavour to a sweeter more intense flavour, so when you add your white wine, lemon and coriander and cook them down to a thick sauce they will retain the sharpness and freshness of their flavour. To cook, bring the sauce to the boil add the mussels, stir making sure the mussels are evenly coated with the sauce, sprinkle some coriander, cover with a lid and cook on high heat for about two minutes stirring every so often. Voila, mussels are serve a la Shaan, enjoy. Recipe from Shaan Khan, head chef at Harrogate’s Rajput Indian restaurant.