I've mentioned that I just bought Rick Bayless's 20th Anniversary "Authentic Mexican Cooking." Rick is featured on PBS, and I am pretty sure he beat Bobby Flay in an Iron Chef cookoff. He is a very laid back but extremely excellent interpreter of Mexican cuisine for Americans. There is very little I don't like about him.
This cookbook, and I own many cookbooks, is in the top five, or three of all I own. It's informative, clearly written, very well cross-referenced, and has been tested in a home kitchen, which is a critical success factor for a cookbook.
I got this book on Friday and read through it while playing Mob Wars on facebook. (Please join my mob.....) The dish I cooked today was the first dish I wanted to cook out of it, although I will be doing a pork dish for dinner on Monday or Tuesday.
It is a very common custom around the world to make a vinegar-based sauce for raw oysters. A sauce mignonette - sherry vinegar, shallots, herbs, pepper - is a traditional French accompaniment for fresh-shucked oysters. My friend Steve K. brought back ten dozen oysters from Maine this past fall, and, man, did we have an oyster-schucking party watching the football game. I am usually only a glutton for punishment, but a bushel of oysters and I get right in the groove.
Bayless's recipe is basically a sauce mignonette that is used for a poaching liquid for the oysters. I made a couple of minor adjustments.
This dish had the taste and feel of something really hearty that would stick to the ribs, but ate almost like a gazpacho. It was really delicious. A great Sunday-watching-rugby-and-NASCAR early dinner.
From memory, so as not to infringe on a copyright:
Ingredients:
"Trinity" of onion, carrot, cubanelle or similar pepper. Roasting the pepper in advance is great; if you can't, add a pinch or two of smoked paprika
Cumin - healthy pinch
Cinnamon- pinch
Allspice - lean pinch
Clove - 6 whole, ground
Black pepper
24 shucked oysters, liquor reserved. 36 better.
Garlic - 6 or 7 cloves, minced
Bay leaves
Oregano
Cider Vinegar
Clam Juice or Fish Stock - enough to make a poaching liquid.
Finely chopped cilantro to garnish.
I added:
Fish sauce - only a little
Fresh mini-loaves for serving bowls. One per person.
Tilapia filet - I forgot I used up my fish stock with a risotto a couple of weeks ago, so I added a tilapia filet and some water to the trinity for a poaching liquid. Shredded the tilapia.
Saffron butter (make a simple compound butter with saffron bloomed in a tbs of warmed cream; whip into softened butter; roll in saran wrap and put in fridge.
Lemon juice to finish.
Technique:
Make a trinity (miripoix); sweat in skillet with olive oil
Coarsely grind spice mixture; add to trinity when sweated
Add tilapia and rest of ingredients EXCEPT OYSTERS; simmer for 10 - 15 minutes - bare simmer
Toast mini-loaves - I smeared a saffron butter into hollowed-out mini loaves, then put them into the broiler for five minutes.
When loaves are done, add to the skillet, simmer 4 minutes, tops. Just barely firm.
Serve in loaves as bowls. Finish with a squeeze of lime juice.
I had forgotten to use finely sliced leek in place of the onion; I'll save this for another day.
I wished I used more oysters.
I had a simple spinach and tomato salad with oil and grapefruit vinegar.
