Market Fresh

By Eric (Discover English Teacher)

One of my favourite things about living in Melbourne is being able to go to the Queen Victoria Market.  It turns grocery shopping into a sensory overload of excitement.  The delicious fresh produce laid out appetizingly on the benches; the booming calls of the rival stall holders proclaiming their produce sweetest and cheapest; the thronging crowds wandering up and down (all safely masked in this Covid era); the queues awaiting their freshly made jam donuts.  It’s all such fun and it’s one of the few places we can still actually go to!! (Assuming we live within five kilometres) 

The Market (as we tend to call it) is a cosmopolitan experience and it’s a great place for people watching – you can see people from all walks of life and of all ages happily lugging their fruit and veg along, side by side.  Multicultural and egalitarian – my two favourite words.  Honestly, you can spend a day happily just watching the crowds.  But, if you get tired of crowd spotting another fun thing to watch is the fishmongers and their fish.  I love to look at all the weird, alien creatures from The Deep displayed in their glass cases, on beds of ice.  Sometimes it can be hard to believe that those many-tentacled and exo-skeletoned animals come from the same planet as us.

Strange they may be, but delicious they certainly are.  One dish that I occasionally make for friends is fresh mussels with wine and garlic.  I thought I’d share it because it’s a really cheap and easy way to treat yourself (and your flatmates) to something during the lockdown – I pretend I’ve taken my flatmates to a restaurant 😉

INGREDIENTS

2 kilos of fresh mussels (usually costs only about $10)

Lots of butter – about 150gms

4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

Bunch of spring onions, finely chopped

2 cups white wine

Bunch of parsley, finely chopped

METHOD

You will need to scrub and de-beard the mussels – mussels usually have a sort of stringy bit of hair/seaweed and you will need to pull this firmly to remove it.  Discard any mussels whose shells have cracked.

Melt the butter in a big saucepan.

Sauté the garlic and spring onions (about 5 minutes).

Add the wine and slowly bring to the boil (best on a medium heat)

Once the wine is bubbling, add the mussels, stir well, cover and steam for about five minutes – the mussels are cooked once their shells open up.

Remove from heat, stir in chopped parsley and serve with crusty bread.

And that’s it – a very easy, delicious and cheap way to treat yourself.