Oyster Meuniere (和食)

• portions: 1-2

Ingrédients

8-10 oysters

½ lb mushrooms, cut into ¼” thick pieces (king trumpet mushrooms are best)

4 tbsp flour

1½ tbsp dried seaweed flakes (called laver or 青のり)

1½ tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp mirin

2 tbsp sake

10 g butter

10 g black pepper

1 lemon (optional)

Instructions

Wash the oysters in a water and salt solution, getting any sand or dirt out of the frilled area. Set them aside and dry them thoroughly on all sides using towels.

Mix the flour, dried seaweed flakes on a plate or small baking tray. Drop in the dried off oysters and coat them in the mixture. This will form our batter that will brown in the pan.

Melt the butter in a medium pan over medium-high heat and add the mushrooms to give them a little head start. After a minute or so, add the coated oysters and spread everything out so that the oysters can brown. If they oysters are browning faster than the mushrooms, just spread the mushrooms out in the pan and place the browned oysters on top of them.

Once everything is browned nicely, but not shrinking too much, add the soy sauce, mirin, sake, and butter. Reduce the heat to medium and allow it to reduce until the sauce has thickened to your liking, then remove from the heat. Add black pepper to taste and serve hot alongside rice or another grain, with optional lemon juice.

Notes

Meuniere is a French technique for cooking fish that consists of coating fish in seasoned flour, pan frying it in butter, and finishing it with a butter sauce. This recipe combines this technique with Japanese cuisine, coated oysters in a seaweed flour mixture, pan frying, and finishing with a Japanese style butter sauce. Best served alongside rice or another grain.