Always thinking of the next meal...
Potatoes, or more specifically mash, are almost always on our daily dinner plates, so this dish is a refreshing change. It is so easy to forget about the filling and nutritious qualities of legumes and every time I do come around to eating them I can’t help but ask myself why don’t we eat this kind of thing more often? A day later I would have forgotten all about my love for legumes and putter forth with the mash routine.
Once in a while I get a craving for mussels and this is the recipe I usually prepare to satisfy my need. It’s dead easy to follow and very quick to make. What I love especially of this dish is the sauce, so much so that I end up scraping every last drop out of the pan and carefully pour the last droplets on the few grains of rice left on my plate and cover them with this sweet seafood gravy and slowly relish every single bit.
The first time I came across a hotpot was when Marcus Wareing prepared it in the first Great British Menu series. Even though he took great care to research his subject and prepared it most lovingly I couldn’t help but turn up my nose at it. It’s as if the original cook thought it’s a great idea to throw every single root vegetable under the sun into the pot with a bit of meat in a slapdash way and bung it in the oven, hoping that in a few hours his meal would somehow be magically transformed into something wonderful. Instead all the vegetables turn into the same colour and mysteriously taste the same, seeing that it’s difficult to discern between a potato, turnip and who knows what else that’s been cooked ad infinitum.