No. 7: Festivities
Celebrating with seafood, drinks alongside and mignonette--oysters abound
It’s that festive time of year! I am very late to the party, and hope that you have been having the happiest of holidays. I’m just in time to wish a fabulous New Year for us all.
With an already-small family that in recent years has spread out from the Northwest, holiday gatherings around here have gotten pretty mellow lately. But then again, so have we, so the slower pace feels ideal. Four of us began with a late breakfast Christmas Day: sourdough waffles, eggs, bacon, fruit. I also made a batch of salmon ‘bacon’ from my Salmon cookbook that came out, geez, 17 years ago! Hadn’t made that in a while. Per our usual plans, later in the day we had a relatively light meal—one year it was homemade gravlax and aebleskivers inspired by a recent trip to Stockholm. This year I riffed on the fish curry my mom made for so many years, another recipe I haven’t cooked in quite some time. Delicious, comforting, nostalgic.
For some of this year’s holiday celebrations it seems that splendiferous seafood towers have been extra popular—if media references, both social and otherwise, are any indication. At least there are plenty of opportunities to delight in the idea of those glorious tiered arrangements and imagine how—in our dreams of seafood indulgence—we might craft our own version of the seafood tower.
The Wall Street Journal had a great article about seafood towers recently, with nods to the touch of luxury and celebration they add to an occasion. It’s hard for them not to do so: the towers offer a range of different seafoods in generous quantities intended for sharing. And in these times, the camaraderie of the shared experience means more than ever, gathering with friends and family for a treat that amps up the celebration volume by sheer nature of its indulgent display. Chefs in the article—including Mike Lata from The Ordinary in Charleston, where I’ve had a couple of fabulous meals, highly recommended for seafood lovers—talk of the flexibility in selecting what’s best of seasonal and regional seafoods, seafood towers being anything but static in their offerings.
One inspiring example of a seafood tower I saw recently was in the always-enticing Instagram feed of Island Creek Oysters. It features shrimp and caviar on the top level, oysters on the bottom, and some of their tinned seafoods tucked onto the center tier. I was singing praises of tinned seafood in the last issue, loved seeing them incorporated into this elegant tower line-up.
It's been a good while since I’ve indulged in one of these extravagant tiered towers. A much simpler version recently was a plateau, essentially a single-layer version, I had with a friend at Bofinger in Paris in March this year. Half a crab, oysters, a slew of sweet little crevettes grises shrimp. And I’ve had countless oyster-only plateaux near and far. If you’ve had a fabulous seafood tower recently, let me know where in the comments. I’ll keep it in mind for potential treat in the future.
Odds and Ends: What to drink with your seafood?
Well, really, whatever you want. (And you can almost never go wrong with dry Champagne or other dry sparkling wines… I don’t recall experiencing a mismatch with that option and seafood.)
Broad rules about pairings—this with salmon, that with clams—are challenging given variability of two key factors: individual taste preferences and cooking method/other ingredients of a particular dish. In the world of seafood, there’s a huge spectrum of pairing possibilities given the extensive variety of seafoods and beverages to choose from. Which makes it fun and interesting to try different combinations now and then to see what suits our palates and our favorite seafood preparations best.
This brief discussion today focuses just on a handful of spirits sampled with half-shell oysters, an exercise I did as my solemn authorly duty while working on Oysters. I wrote a section in that book about pairing beverages with oysters, including reflections from this tasting experience and the impressions it left. Gin got a couple thumbs up (already my favorite spirit), its juniper-and-other-botanicals character quite well suited to oysters. And the brininess of the oyster elevated the flavors of the gin as well—which makes sense, we know the power of a pinch of salt to bring out flavor. Blanco tequila was also a great partner for the oysters, enhancing the oyster’s flavors. I hadn’t anticipated how well a couple Scotches played with oysters, too, though I soon read more about that beloved pairing. Which included a tidbit about one habit of some Scotch-and-oyster fans: pouring a bit of Scotch into the just-slurped-from oyster shell, the two liquors melding for a distinct malty-briny treat.
For this research exercise the spirits were sipped straight-up, to best appreciate their distinct character relative to the oyster—the finer nuances of how the oyster’s brininess enhanced the spirit, and to what degree the spirit complemented the flavor of the oyster. Which led to one of the more interesting take-aways from the tasting—how much there is to love about sipping minimally-embellished (if not purely solo) spirits alongside a gorgeous half-shell oyster. Both sides of the pairing, at their pure and simple best.
Recipe Box: Mignonettes and Friends
‘Tis the time of year when oysters appear in earnest. They’re inherently festive when glistening in their just-shucked glory, perched on a bed of ice. Enough so to make any meal an occasion, holidays or not. What, if anything, to be served as an accoutrement for those oysters? Purists need nothing more than the liquor that naturally surrounds the oyster in its shell. For some, a mere squeeze of lemon or dash of hot sauce is embellishment enough. From there, it’s really an endless array of possibilities for potential addition to those briny beauties.
Classic is the traditional mignonette: red wine vinegar, minced shallot, maybe a grinding or two of black pepper. Potential variations begin with simply considering the vinegar used: Champagne vinegar, unseasoned rice vinegar, herb vinegar, maybe white balsamic? (haven’t tried that one). In my book Oysters, I offered three riffs on mignonettes. For one I first roast the shallot before mincing, another uses unseasoned rice vinegar with both fresh and pickled ginger, the third swaps lemon juice for vinegar (see below).
I also included a couple other types of finishing touches for half-shell oysters. A few granités—icy twists on mignonette—including grapefruit-basil and cucumber-shiso. And four slightly more substantial relishes, among them fennel-aquavit and kimchi-cucumber.
Here are two of the ten half-shell accompaniments I included in Oysters.
Lemon-Rosemary Mignonette
1 tablespoon loosely packed fresh rosemary leaves
1/4 cup boiling water
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
Put the rosemary leaves in a small heatproof bowl and pour the boiling water over. Set aside to steep for about 30 minutes. Drain, reserving both the rosemary and the water.
In a small ramekin or other small serving dish, combine the lemon juice with 2 tablespoons of the rosemary water. Finely mince enough of the rosemary leaves to measure 1/4 teaspoon and stir into the lemon juice mixture. The flavors will be best if allowed to sit for at least 1 hour before serving. The mignonette can be made up to a day in advance, refrigerated until ready to serve.
Makes about 1/2 cup, enough for about 4 dozen half-shell oysters
Kimchi-Cucumber Relish
3/4 cup peeled and seeded finely chopped cucumber
1/4 cup finely chopped kimchi
1 teaspoon unseasoned rice vinegar, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon soy sauce, plus more to taste (optional)
In a small bowl, stir together the cucumber, kimchi, rice vinegar, and soy sauce. Taste for seasoning, adding a bit more vinegar or soy sauce to taste. Let the relish sit for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, to allow the flavors to blend.
Transfer the relish to a small ramekin or other small serving dish and refrigerate until ready to serve, up to 1 hour.
Makes 1 cup, enough for about 4 dozen half-shell oysters
