Before we moved to Vancouver I was a bit of a wuss about seafood. Especially shellfish. But we live within walking distance of the market at Granville Island. Within the first couple weeks of living here, we started bringing home beautiful tuna steaks. And frequenting a restaurant called Bin 941 for their fantastic mussels.
This weekend was another milestone in my acceptance of all things seafood. We bought fresh mussels and attempted to recreate a Bin 941 experience at home. I think it might have been better. Bin is charmingly tiny and loud, but sometimes you don’t want to sit with strangers who force you to take their leftover fries, you know? And sometimes you want to really fill up on mussels and have lots of fresh baguette to sop up the broth with.
We originally were thinking of making some sort of white wine broth, very traditional. But I clumsily tripped and smashed the wine bottle on the sidewalk. Very suave, I know. So we decided to make a coconut milk broth instead. I’m very glad it worked out that way.
I used this recipe as a general guideline but made quite a few changes. I omitted the ginger, and added some garlic, fresh chile peppers and kaffir lime leaves. And we let the broth simmer for a half hour. I think it helped the flavors really meld. And we toasted slices of a baguette (from Terra Breads) and rubbed them with a garlic clove.
I haven’t been sharing many recipes lately, but this was the probably the best meal I have ever made. For five dollars a pound, we might just be buying more in the next couple days before it gets too hot and they’re no good anymore. Maybe we’ll try to recreate Bin’s mussels in white ale with orange segments. Tonight, maybe?