Mussels cooked in beer with homemade cocktail dipping sauce

We were at the city centre last Saturday to do a bit of winter shopping for Francesca and couldn't avoid the lure of the open market to check out the fish stalls.  I was thinking of getting my hand on some tiny fish called "spiering" in Dutch which I ate two weeks ago for lunch to make my version of the Pinoy "okoy" but unfortunately, it was not available.  I ended up buying 2 kilos of fresh mussels and a kilo of mackerel which was a real bargain.  The fish seller was even so nice to hand me a pack of smoked salmon as a complementary give-away.

Siefko introduced me to eating mussels or "tahong" as we call it in the Philippines, the Dutch and Belgian manner.  Years ago when he was still living and working in Belgium, we would normally dine out on Belgian mussels cooked in beer and served with Belgian fries.  I now have my own version of the dish which is just as good.

In the Philippines, I remember that we cooked mussels by sauteeing it garlic, onions and ginger and adding chili leaves.  Oftentimes it is recommended for new nursing moms as a good way to stimulate milk production ;-)

Here's my take on this dish:

Ingredients: Mussels cooked in beer

• 2 kilos mussels (good for 2 persons)
• 1 piece carrot, sliced
• 1 piece white onions, sliced or chopped
• 1 piece leeks, sliced (spring onions or dahon sibuyas can also be used as a substitute)
• stalks of celery, chopped
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 a bottle of beer equivalent to about 150ml

Cooking instructions:

1. Placed the cleaned mussels (cut off the hairy stuffs sticking out) in a deep pot.  I used our soup pot for this purpose and the raw mussels should be about just 60-75% in the pot to give space for the mussels when they open up.  
2. Season the mussels with salt and pepper.  Add the beer and the vegetables (onions, leeks, celery and carrots).  Shake the pot with the lid on so that the seasoning and the vegetables are evenly distributed.
3. Cook the mussels in medium heat, shaking the pot from time to time so that mussels are cooked evenly.  This should take about 7-10 minutes or depending when you see that all the mussels have opened up.
4. Served the mussels with a cocktail dipping sauce and some slices of french bread, cucumber, paprika and radish.

Making the cocktail dipping sauce is a matter of rough guessing.  I normally just throw in the ingredients and just taste the resulting mixture for correction of this and that ingredient.  Hence, the quantities below is something that you can vary according to preference:

I love cocktail sauce.  The little perkiness from the brandy is also lovely.  Thus, we have brandy in the house not for drinking but simply for making the cocktail sauce.  To make this sauce, just mix the following ingredients:

Ingredients:  Cocktail Dipping Sauce

• 7 tbsps. mayonaise
• 2 tbsps. tomato ketchup
• salt and pepper to taste
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1 tbsp ginger syrup
• 1 tsp. worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp brandy

You can dip anything on this sauce from the mussels to the bread and the raw salad veggies.