Summer Celsius Mussels

    Fresh Mussels cooked in a summer beer with some lemongrass and lime leaf.

    Ingredients

    • 2 Cloves Garlic
    • 2 Limes
    • 8 Stalks Lemongrass
    • 3 Thai Red Chiles
    • 3 Shallots
    • 5 Keffir Lime Leaves
    • 1 Can Baxter Summer Celsius
    • 1 Pound Mussels

    Instructions

    1. Slice shallots. Chop up lemongrass like this. Cut chiles into rounds. Thinly julienne lime leaf. Clean mussels by quickly rinsing in cold water and removing any hairs. If the mussels are open, tap lightly. If they close within the next minute or so, they are still good, but if they stay open toss them out cause they are dead. In a very small amount of oil, cook the shallots down for about 3 minutes. Add the chilies, lemongrass, lime zest, garlic, and most of the lime leaves, and cook another minute or two. Add the whole beer to deglaze the pan. Add the mussels and cook until opened. If any don't open, throw them out! Add the juice from the 2 limes, and pour into a bowl. Top with remaining lime leaf, and serve with bread.

    Notes

    Baxter Brewing Company’s Summer Celsius has been my beer of choice for the past two months. When I can get it! I can always get their Pamola Pale ale(which is also great), but when I am looking for the summer Celsius, I am lucky if I find it. Since the first time I tried the beer, I wanted to make a recipe to pair with it, because the beer is brewed with two of my favorite ingredients ever, lemongrass and lime leaf. Just to be clear: the other three companies of “sellout week” contacted me about writing a recipe for them. I did this one on my own.


    Lemongrass and lime leaf. I consider myself lucky to know where to purchase these items, because for years of my life I would search endlessly to no avail.


    Quick saute with the ingredients before the mussels go in. Mussels are super easy to cook, I don’t know why more people don’t do it!

    Beer to deglaze the pan.

    Most of my mussels opened. The ones that didn’t got tossed.

    So tasty! This is one of my favorite things that I have made in awhile.

    When you pair food with wine or beer, sometimes you want to go with similar flavors, and sometimes you want to go opposite. Obviously this is similar flavors to the beer and they complemented one another perfectly.

    Plenty of bread to soak up the extra sauce.  I can’t get enough mussels right now, so you could imagine that this dish really hit the spot.