Paul Mercurio's Recipe - Steamed Mussles, Scrambled Eggs - 25 Mar
BEER SCRAMBLED EGGS WITH SMOKED FISH AND GOATS CHEESE
TOAST
4 Free range eggs
Fresh Dill
Cream
2 Epic Beer (Epic is a NZ brand, comes in six packs)
Vine-ripened cherry tomatoes
Salt and cracked pepper
NZ Smoked Trout, in strips
Sourdough bread, good quality to slice thinly
New Zealand Goats Cheese, good quality spreadable
Beat the eggs in a bowl, add one part cream to two parts beer - a slurp of cream and a splash of beer. Mix in the cracked pepper, salt and fresh dill and taste for seasoning. Heat butter in frypan, when butter starts to foam tip in egg mixture. Fold eggs as cooking - don't overmix. When eggs are about three quarters cooked mix through finely flaked smoked fish. Remove from heat just before the eggs are cooked as they will continue to cook. Leaving cherry tomatoes on the vine, coat with olive oil and cook in a hot oven for 10 minutes until broken down. Thinly slice sourdough and lightly toast. Spread with goats cheese and cut into wedges. Serve.
STEAMED MUSSELS WITH FENNEL AND LEEK IN A BEER AND DILL BROTH
1 kilo of large mussels
1 leek sliced
1 fennel bulb cleaned peeled and sliced
1/2 cup of beer - Three Brothers Porter or Tuatara Porter
(they are NZ Beers)
1 canned of chopped tomatoes
Fresh Dill
Butter and oil for frying
Clean and scrub mussels making sure to remove beards. Add butter
and oil to a large pot with a lid and then add leeks and fennel,
gently sweating until translucent, remove from pan. Add beer and
then mussels to pot, put lid on and turn heat to high. Bring beer
to a boil and boil/steam the mussels shaking pot to get the liquid
swirling around the mussels. When all the mussels have opened
remove from the heat and put mussels into a colander making sure to
reserve the cooking liquid. Strain the cooking liquid to remove
dirt and shell and then return to the pot and bring to a boil
adding canned tomatoes, leeks, fennel, salt and pepper to taste and
fresh dill. Simmer gently for a few minutes to combine flavours
then return mussels to the pot to warm through.
Serve in big bowls with fresh crusty bread and a spoon to slurp up
the fantastic juice.
