Spicy Coconut Curry Steamed Mussels with Mango Couscous

I started the current menu off with a bang tonight, steaming up some mussels in a curry sauce with some delicious couscous! This recipe is from the Top Chef cookbook, and the dish was made by Betty, in Season 2. While the cooking time in this recipe is pretty much under 10 minutes...total...the prep time was a bit more intense...but still, dinner was ready in about 1/2 an hour, so hooray for that!

I gathered some mussels, vegetable oil, ginger, red onion, red curry paste, coconut milk, vegetable stock, limes, ground coriander, salt, black pepper, instant couscous, mango, cognac, sugar, basil, and cilantro, and set up my mise en place, ready to cook for 10 minutes! :) Be forewarned - a lot goes on in the next 10 minutes!

I'm not sure how I didn't notice how awful this picture came out! Sorry!

First things first, I got out a large skillet and added a tablespoon of vegetable oil. Once heated, I added some minced ginger, and a minced red onion and let them cook for about 3 minutes.

I added the curry paste and stirred everything around until the ginger and onion was well coated in the paste. I poured in 1 cup of the vegetable stock and the coconut milk and raised the heat to bring the mixture to a boil.

Meanwhile, I poured two more cups of vegetable stock into another saucepan, and set that to boil as well. With the stock, I poured in some ground coriander, salt and pepper.

Once both pots are boiling, I let the curry mixture reduce for about five minutes. At this point, I added the mussels to the curry mixture, along with the lime zest.

Once the mussels were in, I covered that pot (for 6 minutes), removed the boiling stock from the heat, and poured the couscous in. I stirred that all up and then covered it to sit for 5 minutes.

The last step was to make the topping sauce, which consisted of some sugar, the lime juice, and some cognac. While the couscous was sitting and the mussels were steaming, I boiled these three ingredients together in yet another saucepan.

For me, it took about 6 minutes for the mussels to open, but it could take up to 8 minutes, depending on your mussels, so keep an eye on 'em and don't take 'em out too soon...or too late, for that matter! :) Also, stir the diced mango into your couscous at this point.

Plate your dish by scooping some couscous onto the plate. Top it with some mussels, a few ladlefuls of curry sauce, and the cognac reduction. Sprinkle some chopped basil and cilantro on top and voila...a deliciously spicy meal for a Wednesday evening!