Malaysian-Style Mussels

This recipe was inspired by our local Belgian beer place, which has several different versions of moules frites on the menu: an enamel pot of mussels comes with a cone filled with crispy French fries and a mayonnaise dipping sauce alongside. My favorite is the Malaysian style, which is a riff on laksa, a coconut curry soup with Chinese-Malay elements. At home, mussels take literally minutes to prepare and need only a crispy baguette to sop up all the delicious juices.

• 2 tablespoons safflower oil

• 2 garlic cloves, minced

• One 1/2 -inch piece ginger, peeled and minced

• 1 tablespoon Thai red curry paste

• 1 cup unsweetened coconut milk

• 2 pounds mussels, scrubbed clean and beards removed

• 12 cilantro sprigs 1 lime, cut into wedges

1. Heat a large deep skillet over medium-high heat. Add the oil. When it shimmers, add the garlic and ginger and sauté until fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir in the curry paste and cook for 1 minute. Add the coconut milk and bring to a boil.

2. Add the mussels to the skillet, cover, and cook just until they open, 2 to 3 minutes. With a slotted spoon, transfer them to a serving bowl. (Discard any unopened mussels.) Pour the sauce over the mussels, garnish with the cilantro and lime, and serve immediately. Put out a bowl for the shells.

NOTE: Cleaning Mussels and Other Bivalves Most of the work for a dish like this is getting the shellfish cleaned, devoid of any grit or seaweed. I scrub each shell under cold running water, then soak them in a bowl of cold water for a few minutes. (Invest in a small kitchen scrub brush and reserve it for this task.) Lift them out, scrub again, and soak in fresh water; repeat the process until they are clean. Mussels have a "beard" that needs to be pulled out from the edge of the shell. Rope mussels – i.e., farmed – are one of the few cultivated seafood products I like. They are uniform in size and come clean, requiring much less work than their wild cousins to be ready for the pot.