Steamed mussels with spicy dried shrimps sauce

A recipe for seafood lovers who want to eat like locals. The dipping sauce, a classic of Thai cuisine, called "nam prik kapi", is to die for !

The recipe will serve 2 persons.

Mussels :

1 kg mussels, scrubbed, debearded

2 lemongrass stalks, sliced in 2 cm pieces

4 kaffir lime leaves, stems removed

4 cm galangal, sliced finely

Shrimp sauce :

2 tablespoons fermented shrimp paste

1 handful pea eggplants

12 fresh red chilies

2 garlic cloves

1 whole coriander plant (root included)

2 tablespoons dried shrimps

1 tablespoon coconut sugar

2 tablespoons lime juice

1 tablespoon hot water

Prepare dipping sauce :

Wrap a thin layer of shrimp paste in a piece of banana leaf and grill eat on both sides. It's ready when the banana leaf has changed color (brown). If you don't have banana leaf you can using baking paper. In that case, don't grill but dry-fry for about 2 minutes on each side.

The quality of fermented shrimp paste is quite essential in the final results. If you have the opportunity to buy fresh one, go for it. The good one is is pink, very fragrant and you can still see small pieces of shrimps in it.

In a mortar, pound very lightly the pea eggplants, just to soften them a bit and to open them up so there will be a better exchange of flavors between the bitter eggplants and the sweet and spicy sauce. Reserve.

Pound chilies, garlic, coriander and dried shrimps until you've achieved a smooth paste. Add shrimp paste and pound one more minute.

Transfer to a serving bowl. Stir in sugar, lime juice, water and eggplants. Mix well and taste to adjust the seasoning.

Tip : note that using 12 chilies is a recommendation to prepare the original sauce but it will be highly spicy according to westerners standards. You can use less chilies but the quantities of the other ingredients can't remain unchanged : the taste of the sauce has to be balanced between spicy (chilies), sweet (sugar), salty (shrimp paste), sour (lime) and bitter (eggplants). If you use less chilies, go easy on sugar and lime at first. Then taste and adjust the seasoning.

Prepare mussels :

Discard the mussels that have not closed after being scrubbed and debearded.

Bring 0.5 liter of water to the boil in a large saucepan. Add lemongrass, kaffir leaves and galangal. Boil for about 2 minutes. Lower the heat, add mussels, cover with a lid and steam for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Discard the mussels that have not opened.

Arrange mussels on a serving plate. Pour the cooking juice in a serving bowl. Serve with shrimp sauce.

Dip and enjoy !

Tip : mussels have to be sold and cooked alive. We can never know how long dead mussels have been in that state and it's better not to take any risk that's why we discard mussels that don't react during cleaning process and the ones that don't open after steaming.