You read, I read.: Travelogue - Perth, Western Australia February 2013 (7)

Been close to five days since I am back but work has practically drained all energy that I managed to conserve from my recent vacation. When one gives, one takes. Oh well. I fight on!

And I do need to be quicker with my updates, don't I? Hahaha!

It was on one of those days when I got Rosie by myself, hence drove down to Matilda Bay for a walk.

Tex also dropped me in the city for some shopping because I felt too cooped up at home!

Dinner in the city!

People-watching.

Ordered an Iced Mocha without ice-cream but they might have forgotten and gave me a scoop anyway!

Cheap thrill.

Tex came by to pick me up and we went to have supper! Tried this very busy Asian dessert joint.

Yam dessert

The next day was a Saturday so I insisted that we should visit a farmers' market which only opens on weekends! Woohoo!

Xylia would so love this..

Childhood fun!

Had breakfast by those stalls! I love getting food from stalls like that - food is always prepared just in time and served piping hot!

Yummy bratwurst!

Our shopping from the market!

Okay! I am here to share another recipe - Garlic White Wine Mussels. May I also declare that the mussels' recipes are a mish-mash of what I have tasted, seen on Internet and finally came up with my own! They are all suited to my taste hence I didn't try to follow closely to other recipes.

Sidenote: we used mussels that were bought the other day but silly us put them in the freezer. As a result, we couldn't get them to open even when we simmered them for a longer time than usual. Lesson to learn from this - buy mussels only if you intend to cook it for that day!

Ingredients:

About twenty fresh mussels
One big white onion
Two bulbs of garlic (Yes I exaggerated a little here but essentially, this is the main 'spice' for this dish so put as much as you want! I am very liberal with my spices.)
Two Chilli Padis (Optional; you can skip this if you do not want your soup to be a little spicy)
Chicken stock
White wine (If you can, drop by a liquor store and look for cooking white wine which is sweeter in nature)
Salt and pepper

Preparation:

De-beard the mussels. Refer to this post on getting who to do the dirty job. Throw away any mussel that is opened at this moment.
Dice the onions and chop the garlic finely.
Slice the chilli padi.
Add water to chicken stock and bring to a boil; we need about a big bowl of stock.
And we're ready to cook!

Cooking:

Oil the pan with olive oil generously over medium fire.
When oil is hot, throw in the diced onions and stir fry.
As soon as the onions turn soft (not brown), throw in the massive amount of garlic and chilli; stir fry again.
When the garlic emits a strong fragrant smell and just before they turn brown, add in chicken stock and try three tablespoons of white wine. If you like more or less, add or reduce accordingly.
When the mixture comes to a boil, throw the mussels in and cover lid tightly to let it simmer for 20 minutes.
Add salt and pepper to taste. Throw away any mussel that is not opened at this time.
Simmer again for 3 more minutes.
Garnish with celery leaves or coriander!
Ready to serve!

TADAH!!

Like I mentioned earlier, use fresh mussels to cook. Frozen ones would be tough to gauge if they are dead or not. This batch of mussels that I used were from the batch that were used to cook Chilli Mussels. Notice that they did not open as much as the Chilli Mussels did!