Champagne-Baked Oysters with Braised Leeks and Truffle Cream Recipe

Champagne-Baked Oysters
with Braised Leeks and Truffle Cream

From The Farallon Cookbook by Mark Franz and Lisa Weiss

Ingredients:

12 fresh oysters, shucked, liquor and bottom shells reserved separately
4 to 6 cups rock salt

Braised Leeks:

1 large or 2 medium leeks, white part only, halved lengthwise
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Truffle Glaçage:

1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon Champagne
1 egg yolk
Reserved oyster liquor, above
1 teaspoon chopped fresh black truffle or white truffle oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
3 tablespoons finely julienned fresh black truffle, or lightly toasted nori

This and many other wonderful
recipes may be found
The Farallon Cookbook
from Chronicle Books

This is a sexy first course: sweet, earthy, briny, and voluptuous. If there's an oyster lover you're trying to seduce, begin a meal with this dish and you may not even get around to the entree. Really, though, the great part is that it's a cinch to pull off. The only trick is shucking the oysters, particularly if you're a novice shucker, hut many fish purveyors will shuck them for you. Though this dish is called Champagne-Baked Oysters, only 1 tablespoon of Champagne is used to bake the oysters, leaving the rest of the bottle to be drunk at the table.

Chef's Tips: In the ideal world, you would have a 2-ounce fresh black truffle to make this dish. But it can also be made using just 1 teaspoon of white truffle oil. If you have them, black or dark-colored plates that contrast with the white salt look particularly stunning for this dish. For a really special occasion, garnish the dish with caviar.

To prepare the oysters: Rinse, scrub, and dry the reserved oyster shell bottoms. Using a large gratin dish or brollerpan bottom, pour in 2 cups of rock salt and pat into a thick layer. Nestle the shucked oyster-shell bottoms firmly in the salt and set aside. Divide the remaining rock salt between each of the 4 serving plates and set aside while you make the dish.

To prepare the leeks: Cut them crosswise into thin half-circles. Rinse in a colander and dry well. In a small sauté pan or skillet, melt the butter over medium-low heat, add the leeks, and cook until soft but not colored, about 5 minutes. Add the thyme, salt, and pepper and cook for 1 minute. Remove from heat and set aside.

To make the glaçage: In a deep bowl, beat the cream until soft peaks form. In a small bowl, whisk the Champagne, egg yolk, reserved oyster liquor, and truffle or truffle oil together. Add to the whipped cream and beat again until the cream begins to hold firm peaks. Season with salt and pepper. Refrigerate for up to 6 hours.

To serve, preheat the broiler. Put a little of the sautéed leeks in the bottom of each shell and place a shucked oyster on top of each serving of the leek mixture. Spoon on enough glaçage to cover the oysters. Place the prepared shells under the broiler 4 to 5 inches from the heat source until the glaçage is speckled golden and brown, about 30 seconds. Remove the oysters from the broiler, carefully lift them out of the salt, and arrange 3 in the bed of rock salt on each plate. Garnish with the truffle or nori, if using.

Improvisations: If you're in the mood for something less fancy, sautéed spinach would make a good combination with the oysters. You could replace the Champagne with the same still white wine that you might choose to drink with the dish. Garnish simply with fresh chives.

Advance Prep: The dish can be made up to the point just before covering the oysters with the glaçage and placing them on the rock salt. Refrigerate for up to 1 hour before serving, but be sure to cool the leek mixture first so that the beat from the leeks doesn't begin to cook the oysters. The glaçage can be refrigerated for up to 6 hours before serving and rewhisked just before serving.

Simplifying: The beauty of this dish lies in its simplicity and there's not much you could do to make it easier, but please don't use oysters from a jar. If you're pressed for time, have your fishmonger shuck the oysters for you.

Wine Notes: Champagne is the natural choice for this dish, not only because it is used in the recipe but because it is also one of the great food and wine pairings. The second-best foil to the creamy oysters would be a Riesling, another of the most glorious white wines in the world. This dish presents the perfect opportunity to try some good German and Alsatian Rieslings. They combine a purity of fruit and depth of flavor with an acidity that makes them very refreshing, even if there is a bit of residual sugar.

SHUCKING AND SERVING OYSTERS
While it takes some practice to get the hang of it, shucking an oyster is much easier to do than to describe. Remember that during the whole process you always want to keep the oysters as flat as possible to prevent the liquor from spilling out. If you're right-handed, put the oyster on the left side of your work surface, wrapped in a heavy kitchen towel. Hold the oyster with your left hand, wrapped in the towel, with the flat side of the oyster up, the deeper, rounded (cup) side down, and the hinged, or pointy, end toward your right hand. Insert an oyster knife into the hinge, trying to find the little crevice where the top and bottom shells are attached. Once you locate the spot where you can insert the knife, push it in with a little forward pressure and twist the knife until you can feel a little "pop." That means that the top and bottom shells have separated. Without removing the knife, run it against and parallel to the top shell to cut the muscle that connects the oyster to its shell. After you've shucked your oyster, take a whiff. Bad oysters smell bad and need no further description. If you've opened it properly, with the least amount of spillage, your oyster should be swimming in a clear, not milky, white liquid. The longer an oyster is out of water, the drier it gets. Shriveled or dry oysters in the shell should be discarded.
Discard the top shell, then take the knife and run it under the oyster to separate it from its bottom muscle. With your finger, carefully wipe away any broken pieces or bits of shell. Place the opened oysters, still in their bottom shells and surrounded by their liquor, on a platter of crushed ice or rock salt and refrigerate until serving time.
Shucked oysters can also be purchased by the pound or in containers, and here on the West Coast they're usually sold in 10-ounce jars. Shucked and jarred oysters are okay for certain cooked preparations, like stews or chowders.
To serve oysters raw, put them on a platter with a few lemon wedges, figuring on about 6 oysters per person for an appetizer or first course. if you want to go a little further, make a mignonette sauce. This classic French sauce is a combination of crushed black pepper with wine vinegar and minced shallots. At Farallon, we serve oysters two ways: with or without caviar. Either way, we serve a mignonette sauce made with Champagne vinegar and also put lemon wedges on the platter. If you really want to educate yourself about the different flavors of oysters, however, I highly recommend that you taste your oysters au naturel. If you're feeling ambitious and you have access to a variety of oysters, think about hosting an oyster-tasting party. Put out the different kinds, on different platters, and compare the oysters side by side. Have some oyster crackers to munch on between gulps, and ask your guests to comment on the flavors of the different oysters. It's great fun and also a fantastic way to educate your own oyster palate.