As a pre dinner snack we had mango and ginger stilton on rosemary crackers. Delicious:
Now for dinner...
Firstly, it was difficult to find an actual recipe (one that I liked and looked well thought out) so I kind of made up my own. Bit risky as I have never cooked mussels before, never used quinoa before, and never made paella of any kind before! Here's my method:
Ingredients:
2 cups quinoa
1 chopped red union
Pancetta (as much as you deem necessary, I added about 70g)2 chopped garlic
2 celery stalks1 tsp olive oil
3 cups vegetable broth
1 chopped red capsicum
1 lb mussels
8 prawns
500ml white cooking wine
1 lime
Firstly, I soaked the quinoa in water for 15 mins. This is what I used:
I sweated off the onion and garlic first, added the pancetta, a few mins later added the capsicum.
Then I added the quinoa, stired through, and added the stock. If I had saffron I would have added it at the same time, and to be honest would have really set it on fire. But saffron is hard to come by and what we could find was $12 so I opted out.
I bought it to the boil and cooked for 15 minutes. Another option is to add frozen peas here but I chose not to do that too, I don't fancy peas much.
Meanwhile, I boiled the white wine and the remaining stock, added the celery and some garlic, and cooked the mussels off at the last minute. They only take a few mins so wasn't difficult to coordinate.
At the last minute, I chucked the prawns in and gave it a stir until all prawns were cooked. Took about 2 mins.
They were not shelled but were split so were still pretty easy to eat. Glad I didn't have to deal with prawn heads, need a few beers to be game enough to rip one of those off without being grossed out by those beady black eyes!
Served on a plate, added the freshly cooked mussels, and garnished with a wedge of lime.
Honestly, it was called a cooking challenge, but I didn't find it to be a challenge at all. It was easy to prepare, easy to make and easy to eat. The verdict? It was bloody delicious. Quinoa rocks, will certainly be using this again, and again, and again!
Glad I added the pancetta, next time I might use chorizo though. Plus I might replace the mussels for chicken. They were easy to cook and quite tasty, but I prefer fresh ones straight from the sea (like green lipped mussels in NZ... mmmm). So while the experience was great, going to avoid cooking mussels so far from the ocean.
Overall, yeah sure, I would recommend this, but make your own changes, go with what you like and what you want in it, I don't reckon there is much room for going wrong here. There will be a next time for me to this again, and I will change it every time no doubt!
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