Smoked mussels with tomatoe and ginger sauce

This is my entry for a monthly Swedish event called “Cyberkocken” (Cyberchef). Every month four ingredients are chosen by the blogger who is hosting the event and you are supposed to make a dish that includes all those four ingredients. This month ingredients were given by Anne at "Anne’s food" and they were: mussels, ginger, cilantro and something smoked.

I immediately knew that I want to make a dish with smoked mussels, as I really like them a lot. The only mussels I like more are scallops. But given the ingredients smoked mussels were perfect.

After some looking through my recipes I figured out that I want to wrap them in phyllo dough and make a dipping sauce as well. In a Lufthansa magazine from last summer I found a wonderful tomato and ginger sauce.


Smoked mussels with tomatoe and ginger sauce 
100 g mussels
some cilantro
2 tbsp melted butter
3-4 sheets phyllo dough

4 tomatoes
½ fresh ginger
1 chopped onion
1 chopped garlic glove
juice from one orange
a bit of chili
olive oil

Fry tomatoes and onion for about 5 minutes. Add garlic, ginger and orange juice. Cook for another 5-10 minutes. Add some chili, salt and pepper. Let it cool.

Mix mussels with cilantro. Melt 1 tbsp butter. Take one sheet of phyllo dough and spread the melted butter over it. Put another phyllo sheet over it and cut in squares. I got 12 squares from one sheet.

Put a bit of the sauce on a square and put the mussel on the top. Role it like a spring role. Do the same with the rest of the mussels /squares and when done spread some melted butter on the top. Bake on 200˚C until they get golden, 10-15 minuter.

What’s left of the sauce I mixed and used as a dip sauce.

Zucchini

Zucchini is really one of my favourite vegetables. No matter how you prepare it, it always tastes delicious. And there are tons of ways to prepare zucchini; I use it quite often, as you will discover here on the blog.

However breaded zucchini is one of my favourite things to eat for a late weekend breakfast. And honestly I could eat it every day; sometimes I do that. Mostly when I run short of those 2 late-breakfast-days a week, then I make it as a side dish for dinner or lunch. And no, I never get tired of it. Especially since I discovered amaranth and now sometimes use it instead of breadcrumbs…variation we like after all.

When it comes to preparing breadcrumbs and amaranth covered zucchini I prepare them in two different ways. Breadcrumbs need oil and frying so I fry breaded zucchini in olive oil as usual.
But when it comes to amaranth covered zucchini I bake it for 10 minutes in the oven on a very lightly oiled foil. I do that because when frying amaranth it absorbs oil very easily and can get a bit burned in taste, so I prefer to bake it in the oven.


Breadcrumbs/amaranth covered zucchini  
serves 2
1 medium zucchini
some salt
1 egg
2 tbs milk
salt and pepper
approx. 0.5 dl of flour
approx. 3 dl of breadcrumbs or popped amaranth
olive oil

Peal zucchini and cut it in 2-3 pieces of the same size. Slice each piece in 0.5cm thick slices, sprinkle some salt over and let them rest for 15 minutes so that excess water comes out.

In the meantime prepare 3 deep plates. In the first one put the flour. In the second one beat the egg, add milk, salt and pepper. And in the third one put breadcrumbs or popped amaranth.

Dip each slice of zucchini first in the flour, then in the egg and last in the breadcrumbs or amaranth. Zucchini covered with breadcrumbs is fried in some olive oil and zucchini covered with amaranth is baked in the oven on a lightly oiled foil, on 200˚C for about 10 minutes. Turn them around after 5 minutes.