Oyster Pan Roast (Page 119)

RECIPE #1145

• Date: Friday, April 16, 2010 -- 7pm
• Location: Berkeley, CA
• Kitchen: Our Temporary California Home
• Fellow Chef: Matty
• Recipe Rating: D-
  

I chose this recipe as part of the All Seafood All The Time plan. Wow, was this recipe bad. I was skeptical reading the ingredient list: oysters, clam juice, ketchup-style chili sauce, white wine, Worcestershire sauce, celery salt, butter, heavy cream, bread, and paprika. I tried to remain optimistic, hoping that somehow that list of ingredients would come together to form something delicious. Unfortunately, it didn't happen. The recipe was essentially as follows: Shuck oysters. Mix together with the next 7 ingredients on the list. Heat it up, but don't really cook it. Toast some bread. Slather with an absolutely ridiculous quantity of butter. Pour soup over bread. The result was just foul. There was so much butter on the bread that you can see standing butter in the picture above, even after the hot soup was poured over it! The flavor of the soup was terrible -- fishy from the clam juice and oyster liquor, mixed with chili sauce, celery salt, etc... Bad soup with soggy, buttery bread in it. Just not tasty. The real testament to how bad this recipe was is that even my special gentleman wouldn't eat it. Of the almost 800 recipes from The Book that he has participated in, I can count on one hand the ones that he wouldn't eat. He took one bite of this, though, and put the rest down the garbage disposal. Not good. Not good at all.

The recipe is here.

This morning I took my special gentleman to the airport. He is in New Orleans for the weekend at the bachelor party of one of his best friends. I am a little bummed about it, mostly because Saturday is my 30th birthday and he won't be here to celebrate with me. I dropped him off at the airport early this morning, and when I got back to Berkeley I was feeling a little down. My mood was soon improved, however, by the arrival of the FedEx man. My shad roe came! I opened a huge box to find my shad roe and steamers packed with cold packs and seaweed. The shad roe was intact and very chilly -- it shipped wonderfully. Many thanks to Captain Marden's Seafoods in Wellesley, Massachusetts for coming through with the shad roe!

In the afternoon the shad roe and I headed to Palo Alto. I am staying with Emilee and Brian for a few days while my special gentleman is gone. It's great to be in Palo Alto and I am looking forward to a fun birthday weekend here! Tonight Chris came over for dinner and we made the shad roe recipe! (Also the steamer recipe, and some poussins.) The shad roe wasn't exactly a huge hit (Emilee: "That doesn't even look like food."), but I was so happy to have found the shad roe and made the recipe that I didn't care! I will finish this project in 2010. Nothing can stop me -- not even the shad roe! On the agenda for my birthday dinner Saturday: Poached Salmon in Aspic. Mmmmm.... salmon in salmon jello. Yum!