April 30, 2014 Fresh oysters on the half shell and steak with mushrooms and salad

April 30, 2014 Fresh oysters on the half shell and steak with mushrooms and salad

After applying to refinance my HELOC at Wells Fargo at around 5:20 I went by Pro’s today to replenish our larder.  I bought key limes (finally they have gone down to $.79/lb.), white onions (3 lb. for $.99), small avocados (4 for $.99), ab out one-half pound of mushrooms ($3.29/lb.), Roma tomatoes (2 lb. for $.99), cilantro ($.20 per bunch).  Then I went by the fish department and saw that they had fresh oysters.  I asked the attendant how much they were and he said $7.99 per dozen.  I knew Suzette had been looking for fresh oysters during the entire trip to Europe and we never found any, except at Mitchell’s Restaurant in Clifden in Ireland, where we had one each with our seafood platter.

   

So I went through the lot of oysters with the attendant and culled the dead ones from the living and selected a dozen of the better live ones.  When the attendant handed me the bag of oysters he also handed me a free oyster shucking knife, which impressed me as being so Mexican and so wonderful.  When I got home I put them into the fridge and punched a hole in the bag.

When Suzette arrived home she was thrilled and not the least because we could make a great cocktail sauce with the fresh Long’s Horseradish we had bought at the in Lancaster Central market a few days ago.

Suzette fetched fresh lettuce from the garden and spun it in the lettuce colander, while I made a simple dressing with some white wine vinegar and lime and Grey Poupon and then some herbs of Provence and olive oil.

I fetched the catsup and Long’s and Suzette immediately started making a cocktail sauce with the catsup, horseradish and fresh lime juice.

I started shucking the oysters.  I am really rusty in my shucking skills.  Finally I got the hang of opening the oysters.  You must thrust the knife through the shell near the point in the front where the large muscle holds the shell shut and try to sever the muscle.  When you do that you can then open the shell.  Suzette put some ice cubes into a deep walled Chinese steel tray and I put the oysters on it.  After about twenty minutes I had shucked all 12 oysters.

While I was shucking the oysters Suzette sliced the mushrooms and started sautéing them in a skillet with butter and olive oil.

 

When the oysters were shucked I fetched the chilled bottle of La Granja Cava from the fridge and we went to the garden to eat our oysters.  We loved the oysters and sparkling wine.

As you probably know, the champagne growers of the Champagne region in France have taken legal action to stop the use of the word “champagne” for any sparkling wine not produced in Champagne.  I think the Champagne growers’ strategy has back fired on them in the sense that there are so many wonderful sparkling wines made using the champagne method, which now must be called classical method or traditional method, that the distinction they have forced on the world has made bubbly drinkers more aware that there are wonderful sparkling wines made all over the world and not just in Champagne.  It may still make a difference in France, but for folks in other countries a good sparkling wine is a good sparkling wine.  For example, in Albuquerque we have a wonderful sparkling wine, Gruet, that is made by a French family that also owns vineyards in France and makes champagne in Albuquerque in the way they do in France.  That is true all around the world.  I would just as soon drink Roederer’s Anderson Valley sparkling wine than their French made champagne.   In fact the same wine makers usually make both.

After the oysters were eaten and about half of the bottle of Cava drunk we decided to grill the steak.  Suzette put the steak on the heated grill and I attended to the mushrooms.  I added a clove of garlic and in about ten minutes a splash of sherry to the mushrooms when Suzette brought the steak in from the grill. 

We had a lovely meal of grilled steak garnished with sautéed mushrooms and fresh salad from our garden with glasses of Spanish La Granja Cava and agreed that it was wonderful to be back home and cooking for ourselves again.

Bon Appétit