Dishy fishy

After a trip to the Jingshen fish market with some friends, I made two delicious seafood dishes tonight. If you would like to see some photos and some information about the market, check out my blog here.

I saved the salmon for another occasion, so it's in the freezer now. As soon as I got home I peeled and cleaned the tiger prawns and defrosted and cleaned the mussels. I found this excellent video clip that tells you how to clean and handle these wonderful Greenshell mussels from New Zealand here, they are so succulent and yummy! As soon as they are caught, they are cleaned and frozen, but the nice thing is, besides their attractive green shells, they come already open, with only one shell, so eating them is not a fiddly business. I had no idea how to cook my catch, so I used the ingredients I had in the fridge, and part from memory, part guessing - as I would have prepared it in Argentina. I cooked the mussels in a white wine sauce with a bit of garlic, spring onion and parsley - as a starter. Thank you Lucy for introducing me to these delicious mussels.

For the tiger prawns, I made vermicelli 'al dente' and cooked the prawns in a Provencale sauce: garlic, shallots and parsley, with a dash of white wine and cream. For the prawns I left out the wine because the girls don't like it.

These two dishes are very simple and quick and the children love pasta with prawns.

Greenshell mussels from New Zealand 

vermicelli with tiger prawns a la Provencale