Seafood Made Simple: These Khao Soi mussels showcase coconut, spice and all things nice

This weekend’s recipe: a Northern Thai Khao Soi coconut broth with Irish rope-grown mussels inspired by my trip to Chang Mai, is very straight forward while delivering the quintessential and complex balance of flavours that Thai cuisine is famous for – sweet, salty, spicy and sour.

I took three months off from cooking in the summer of 2016 and travelled to Southeast Asia with five of my best friends from secondary school. 

Thailand and Cambodia were our chosen destinations. Backpacks, travel visas and vaccinations, we set off excitedly for island-hopping, temple-visiting, Full Moon-partying and street food-sampling. 

Naive 21-year-old me thought it might have a negative impact on my career wasting that time where I could have been working the busy summer months, grafting, learning and adding to my repertoire of skills and recipes.

Traditional Thai banquets; bustling markets; fleshy mangoes that tasted of pure sunshine; assisting our mountain guide with cooking a massaman curry after a 10-hour trek with a cooler box of Chang on his back; our trip provided me with such great memories and added so much value to my career and my palate.

At Goldie our cuisine is seafood, but we take inspiration from all over the world to build our daily changing menu, keeping it as interesting for our team as our diners. We close for two weeks each January and allow our travels to influence our cooking.

This weekend’s recipe: a Northern Thai Khao Soi coconut broth with Irish rope-grown mussels inspired by my trip to Chang Mai, is very straight forward while delivering the quintessential and complex balance of flavours that Thai cuisine is famous for – sweet, salty, spicy and sour. 

You can substitute the shallots for onion, the palm sugar for light brown sugar but no replacement can be made for the fish sauce or nam pla in Thai. 

Made from just two ingredients - fish (usually anchovies) and salt, aged in barrels and allowed to ferment - it is wonderful for seasoning and finishing dishes.

Fish sauce offers a salty, umami and deliciously funky layer of flavour.

Khao Soi Mussels

A Northern Thai Khao Soi coconut broth with Irish rope-grown mussels inspired by my trip to Chiang Mai, is very straight forward while delivering the quintessential and complex balance of flavours that Thai cuisine is famous for – sweet, salty, spicy.

Preparation Time

 30 mins

Cooking Time

 6 mins

Total Time

 36 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• 1.5 kg mussels, cleaned

• 8 shallots , finely chopped

• 2 red chilies, finely chopped

• 10 cloves garlic, crushed

• 65g ginger, peeled and chopped

• 1 tbsp coriander seeds

• 1 bunch coriander

• 3 tbsp rapeseed oil

• ½ tsp palm sugar

• 1 tbsp fish sauce

• 1x 400ml can coconut milk

• Juice 2 limes

Method

1. Begin by cleaning the mussels. Fill a large bowl with water and add the mussels. Using a small paring knife remove any barnacles from the shells and the beard of the mussel. The beard is what the mussel uses to attach itself to the surface of which it grows you’ll find it halfway up the mussel. Rinse the cleaned mussels in a colander and refrigerate until just before cooking.

2. To make the Khao Soi base, add the shallots, red chillies, garlic, ginger, coriander seeds, all the stalks of the bunch of coriander, 2 tbsp of the rapeseed oil, palm sugar and fish sauce to a food processor and blend until the paste is formed. Reserve the leaves of coriander to finish the dish.

3. In a large heavy-based pot on medium-high heat add the remaining tablespoon of rapeseed oil. Next, add the Khao Soi paste to the pot and cook for 2- 3 minutes.

4. Add the cleaned mussels to the pot coat well in the spice paste before adding the coconut milk to the pot. Place a tight-fitting lid on the pot, give it a quick shake and allow to cook undisturbed for 3 minutes.

5. Whilst that’s happening roughly chop the coriander leaves. Leave a sprig or two to the side to garnish.

6. Remove the lid and discard any mussels that haven’t opened.

7. Remove from the heat and add the chopped coriander and lime juice to the pot, mix well and taste to season. You won’t have any need to season with salt at this stage as the mussels are packed full of sea salt.

Chef’s know-how 

If you’re a little sensitive with heat, deseed the red chillies in this recipe.

This khao soi paste freezes well so if you have the ingredients make a double batch for your future self to enjoy. The paste is delicious smeared across a thick fillet of round fish before being roasted in a hot, pre-heated oven.

If you wanted to make this dish a little more substantial you can add whatever vegetables you have to hand at the stage where you are frying the paste, before the mussels and coconut milk are added.

Mussels should only be cooked when alive so discard any that have cracked shells or do not close when tapped. They should smell fresh and of the seaside.