Chilli Jam Mussels
Mussels are some of the best value seafood you can buy in Britain, and most people still only cook them one way, with white wine, garlic and a splash of cream. This is what happens when that pot of moules wanders into a Thai kitchen. Nahm prik pao, the dark, smoky-sweet chilli jam, gets fried in cracked coconut cream until it smells of caramel and smoke. Then it’s let down with the mussels’ own liquor, which is the best stock you’ll never have to make.
We’ve had a version of this on at Farang this autumn, and it’s a messy one, so it’s not a white shirt dinner. We don’t sell chilli jam at Payst, so make a batch of my Nahm Prik Pao first. It keeps for weeks in the fridge, and you’ll have found three other uses for it by Wednesday.
Put the pot in the middle of the table, hand out spoons and an empty bowl for the shells, and pour something cold and sparkling.
Chilli Jam Mussels
Serves: 4 | Prep: 20 mins | Cook: 25 mins
Ingredients
For steaming the mussels:
1kg live mussels (British rope-grown if you can get them)
150ml water
1 lemongrass stick (bruised and cut into three)
4 thick slices of galangal
For the broth:
1 x 400ml tin coconut milk (don’t shake it; you want the thick cream on top)
4 Thai shallots or 2 banana shallots (thinly sliced)
3 garlic cloves (sliced)
1 lemongrass stick (finely sliced)
10g galangal (finely chopped)
4 tbsp nahm prik pao, Thai chilli jam (homemade, see the link above)
2 bird’s eye chillies (bruised)
4 makrut lime leaves (torn)
8 cherry tomatoes (halved)
To season and finish:
1-2 tsp fish sauce (the mussels bring plenty of salt, so start small)
1 tsp palm sugar (grated)
2 limes (one juiced, one halved to serve)
Large handful of Thai sweet basil leaves
Small handful of coriander leaves
2 tbsp crispy shallots
To serve:
Steamed jasmine rice
Method
Rinse the mussels in cold water and pull off the beards, tugging towards the hinge end of the shell. Tap any open ones on the side of the sink. If they don’t close, bin them, along with any cracked ones. Keep the rest in a bowl in the fridge under a damp cloth, never sitting in water, because fresh water kills them.
Put the water, bruised lemongrass and thick galangal slices in a large pan with a lid and bring to a hard boil. Tip in the mussels, put the lid on and steam over a high heat for 2 to 3 minutes, shaking the pan, until most of them have just opened. They’ll finish in the broth later, so pull them early. Tip everything into a colander set over a bowl to catch the liquor. Throw out any mussels that stayed shut, and keep the lemongrass and galangal for serving.
Pour the mussel liquor through a sieve lined with kitchen paper into a jug. Leave the last spoonful behind in the bowl, because that’s where the grit sits. This liquor is your stock, salty and sweet and tasting of the sea.
Wipe out the pan. Spoon the thick cream off the top of the coconut milk tin into the pan and cook it over a medium heat, stirring, for 3 to 5 minutes, until it bubbles hard and the fat splits out and shines. This is called cracking the coconut cream, and the oil it releases is what you fry the aromatics in. Add the shallots, garlic, sliced lemongrass and chopped galangal and fry for 2 minutes, until the shallots soften and it smells sharp and floral.
Add the chilli jam and fry for a minute or two, stirring, until it darkens and smells smoky and sweet. Watch it, because it has a lot of sugar and catches fast. Pour in the mussel liquor and the rest of the coconut milk, then add the chillies, lime leaves and tomatoes. Simmer gently for 5 minutes. Don’t boil it hard now the coconut milk is in, or it splits and goes grainy.
Taste before you season, because the mussel liquor is already salty. Add the palm sugar and lime juice, then the fish sauce a teaspoon at a time. You want the smoky sweetness of the jam first, then salt, then the lime cutting through at the end. Add more lime if the jam is making it too sweet, and more fish sauce only if it tastes flat.
Put the mussels back in with the reserved lemongrass and galangal. Put the lid on and warm them through for a minute over a low heat, no longer. They’re already cooked, and reheated mussels shrink and turn rubbery fast. Tear in the Thai basil.
Pile it all into a big warm bowl. Scatter over the coriander and crispy shallots, add the lime halves, and spoon a little of the red oil from the top of the chilli jam jar over everything. Serve with jasmine rice, and ladle the broth over the rice as you eat.
Chef’s notes
Steaming the mussels first and building the broth on their liquor is the trick here. You get a stock that tastes properly of the sea without making one, and the mussels never sit in a simmering pan long enough to toughen. Don’t skip straining it, because a mouthful of grit undoes all the work.
Clams or cockles can stand in for some of the mussels. Clams take a minute or two longer to open, so steam them first. British rope-grown mussels are around all year, but they’re at their plumpest from autumn into winter. Buy them the day you cook them.
It’s gluten-free as written, as long as your fish sauce is. Most are, but a few aren’t, so check the label. It’s dairy-free too. Leftover broth makes a great lunch the next day with rice noodles dropped in.
If you’re on a mussel run, the Green Curry Mussels with Pickled Ginger and Cucumber is the fresher, sharper cousin of this one. And once that jar of chilli jam is open, the Stir-Fried Chicken, Nahm Prik Pao, Morning Glory & Green Mango is the next place it should go.
Visit us at faranglondon.co.uk.
Sauces and pastes for cooking Thai at home at payst.co.uk. For more recipes, signed copies of my cookbooks are available at Payst: Cook Thai and Thai in 7.
Head chef & founder of Farang London restaurant. Cookbook author of ‘Cook Thai’ & ‘Thai in 7’. Chief curry paste basher and co-founder of Payst London.
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Cook it at home, or let us cook it for you. Farang, Sebby's Michelin Bib Gourmand Thai restaurant in Highbury, N5.
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