A while back I saw an interesting post on Ideas in Food. They cooked oysters sous-vide at 118F for 20 minutes resulting in a firm meat without losing any of the wonderfully briny and fresh taste that raw oysters have. The texture of a raw oyster is the hardest part of consuming the shellfish and that is where the oyster loses some people. If you can take that "slimyness" away it becomes a little more accessible. After trying the sous-vide method I can honestly say the squishy texture is gone and the oysters almost become sweeter with little to no loss of that delicious fresh ocean flavor. The only thing you lose is the shucking and eating experience. I may be able to live without that, at least once in while.
I am conducting an experiment with this month's menu. We are serving Blue Points over a ginger and cayenne spiced carrot gelee and topping them with a classic mignonette and fresh chives. We are cooking them sous-vide and serving them chilled. We will see how they go over with both the raw aficionados and those willing to try raw again "for the first time." My money is on it being a crowd pleaser, only time (and customers) will tell...
Last night I tried this technique on my circulator with some Blue Point oysters, 118F for 20 minutes, keeping their juices in the bag. I personally liked the result, but my wife could not notice the difference between these oysters and 100% raw. I should have saved some for a blind test. Next time I'll try the same temperature for 1 hour, or 120 for 45 minutes and see the results. Have you gotten any feedback from your customers so far?
ReplyDeleteI forgot to follow up on this...the feedback we received was extremely positive. People who usually can't "do" oysters even enjoyed them.
ReplyDeleteWe did a blind test and side-by-side you could tell the difference pretty easily. That being said, most couldn't tell that they weren't raw. As far as food service goes, this makes life a whole degree easier because we don't need to shuck to order and we don't lose anything by not doing so.
I would be interested to see how different time/temperature effect the final product, even more so, how other oysters would fare. We were serving BP's but BP's benefit from this treatment, at least as far as the non-oyster eaters go. Since they are a "squishier" type, cooking them like this firms them up just enough to be comfortable on the unsure's palate. Now what about kumomotos or beausoleils? They tend to be firm already, would this method take that away or enhance?
Fun stuff...definitely let me know how your experiments turn out.
A few nights ago I tried 30 minutes at 118F. The results were interesting. The oyster center was much "creamier" than at 20 minutes, and it did have more obvious feeling of "cooked" while at 20 minutes you are left guessing (check my post here: http://www.ramirosalas.com/2011/11/13/sous-vide-oysters )
ReplyDeleteI'll keep experimenting and I'll report back with other temperatures and time combinations.