Dinner a past night: Thai-Coconut Bouillabaisse

After a brief (okay, longer than brief...things are crazy now that school has started and the new fiscal year has begun, gimme a break!) hiatus, we're back. I'll start with a review of Thai-coconut bouillabaisse, which I made for Pat's bday week.

This was another solid meh. It was fine, but not exciting. There are certain ethnic dishes that CL just does not do well. Thai is one of them...Indian is another. The only real changes I made to the dish were no red bell pepper (again, the cost!), all mussels instead of mussels and clams, and catfish instead of halibut.

First. I hate cooking mussels. I bought a bag of them, keeping them cool and moist and using them within 1.5 days of purchase. Guess how many were still alive at the time of cooking? 20%. Freaking one in five. In addition to most being smelly and dead, there were also not an insignificant number with cracked or shattered shells. You know that "fool me once" expression? I've been suckered in by these little guys probably 4 or 5 times. Which I suppose makes me a gargantuan moron. Sigh.

Second. The last part of the recipe says to remove the pot from heat, cover and let stand 5 minutes to cook the shrimp and fish. Yeah, right. My shrimp were still all but raw after this little exercise. I ended up putting the whole thing back on low heat for about 10 minutes, at which point Pat was starting to give me hungry eyes, so I served it. I still think they were a little undercooked.

Third. The flavors were fine, but somehow never bold enough. I think I used twice the red curry paste called for, and I still think the whole soup was really blah.

Minor victory--the catfish worked really well in the dish, and I actually think it was the best part. Also, I had planned on putting in rice noodles, but when I opened up the pantry I realized I didn't have any. I think these may have really helped this weak dish.

Hoping to end my "meh" streak of CL recipes soon. Feel free to offer suggestions!