[Lessa]

I don't suppose you have one handy, do you? I would be incredibly grateful!!!!!


L

[24-7cook]

Watercress/Pernod gelee

[boar_d_laze]

Originally Posted by Lessa

I don't suppose you have one handy, do you? I would be incredibly grateful!!!!!


L

By savory gelee do you mean the topping? Oysters Rockefeller is a very specific dish from Antoine's in NOLA and is served set in salt, and smothered with a compound butter. There's nothing en gelee about it that I can think of.

As a specific dish it's a bit schizophrenic in that almost everyone makes it with spinach (NOT watercress), except Antoine's (which does NOT make it with watercress either). The Antoine's recipe is a secret, but it's been extensively reverse engineered -- by me, among others.

Oysters Rockefeller in the Style of Antoine's
Serves 4 for appetizers, or 2 for over-indulging.

Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup bread crumbs made fresh from French, Italian or other mildly sour white bread.
1/2 cup fresh chopped parlsey
1/4 cup, plus 2 tbs garlic chives, chopped; or same amount of fresh scallions, green and white parts, chopped
2 tbs fresh chopped tarragon
2 tbs fresh chopped chervil (if chervil is unavailable, substitute 1 tbs cilantro, plus a pinch of rubbed, dried sage)
1/2 tsp fresh dill
2 oz Pernod, Herbsaint, Ouzo, Arakis, etc.
Trappeys, Crystal or Tabasco hot sauce to taste
Salt to taste
Freshly cracked black pepper to taste
3 doz fresh gulf oysters, on the shell; liquor reserved
Bag of rock salt

Technique:
Chopping the herbs was a cruel hoax, the purpose only to get quantities right. Process all the remaining ingredients, excepting the salt, pepper and hot sauce into a paste in the food processor, the blender, or with a mortar and pestle, into a very soft compound butter. Taste and adjust with the hot sauce, salt and pepper. If using the first method, allow the flavors to marry at least 20 minutes before serving.

Alternatively, you can cook the herbs and other ingredients in the butter just until the color starts to darken, put through a mill, and chill. This second method is probably more authentic.

Spread the salt about 1/2" deep in two baking pans. Set half the oysters in their shells into each pan, pressing them into the salt so they are firmly seated and level. Cover with cling wrap and chill. .

Preheat the broiler, and set the oven rack or broiler pan so the oysters in their pan will be about 6" from the heat. If the broiler element is inside the larger oven, the rack will probably go in the middle slot. If the broiler is separate or below, the rack will probably go in its lowest slot.

Remove one tray of oysters from the refrigerator and distribute oyster liquor among them, about 1 tsp each. Then do the same with the compound butter, about 1 heaping tbs each. Place the oysters under the broiler.

Broil until the butter melts and bubbles, and the oysters' edges curl. Serve immediately, 9 oysters per person to start. Drink much booze, preferably Sazerac cocktails. Repeat as long as you can stay standing.

Each combination of 2 dozen Rockies and 6 Sazeracs comes with a must get sick and/or lots of Mardi-Gras beads guarantee. Don't ask.

Hope this helps,
BDL

[oldschool1982]

I gotta ask why a Savory Gelee for Oysters?????? There's no texture contrast! I mean raw oysters are one thing and Rockefeller is another, but Gelee? You might as well just serve a steamed oyster suspended in aspic made with Pernod, bacon fat and spinach juice.
I also wonder how you serve this hot as that how Rockefeller is served. The Gelee won't hold up.

Anyhow Why mess with perfection? Oysters Rockefeller in it's classic form is one of my favorite appetizers. jmho

Oh he!! a senior moment here but I would suggest what I remember calling a glacage for the top after the spinach mix. It's a mixture of 1/4 whipped eggwhites, 1/4 whipped cream and 1/2 hollendaise folded together.

If it works for you then by all means more power to ya but IMHPO it's n ot on my list of things to try.....for the moment.

[boar_d_laze]

Interesting take on the glacage for Oysters Rockefeller. I think it would work pretty well. Another glacage which might try on top is clam or oyster veloute + whipped cream + hollandaise. Sort of a glacage allemande as opposed to your sort of glacage blanc de oeufs. IIRC Michel Guerard did something like that. I have a copy of Cuisine Gourmandaise somewhere. If and when I find it, I'll take a look.

In any case we won't know what Lessa meant until she comes back and explains. Perhaps she had something other than Rockefeller in mind. Or perhaps something other than gelee. Or maybe that's what Oysters Rockefeller means in Tasmania. The more I think about it, the more sure I am it's terminology. Time will tell.

Lessa please come back. We're dying of curiosity here, and want to help you out too.

BLD

[24-7cook]

Bdl

I would pose a question to you.
What sounds more appealing.

Pernod/Green Onion Gelee (I personally think it would be too harsh and the acid in the onion would deteriorate the gelatin)

Pernod/ Spinach Gelee (Spinach Jello not to appealing)

Pernod/ Watercress ( not the best but could work)

What I am envisioning is a slightly warm oyster with the gelee, a herb butter foam and toasted bread crumbs.

Still we will not know until we get a reply.

Until then I will stick to the classic (I do put watercress in mine, I like the peppery bite)

[boar_d_laze]

Originally Posted by 24-7cook

Bdl

I would pose a question to you.
What sounds more appealing.

Pernod/Green Onion Gelee (I personally think it would be too harsh and the acid in the onion would deteriorate the gelatin)

Pernod/ Spinach Gelee (Spinach Jello not to appealing)

Pernod/ Watercress ( not the best but could work)

What I am envisioning is a slightly warm oyster with the gelee, a herb butter foam and toasted bread crumbs.

Still we will not know until we get a reply.

Until then I will stick to the classic (I do put watercress in mine, I like the peppery bite)

Well, they're none of them "Rockefeller." And, to tell the truth, none of them sound good with a warm oyster to me. oldschool's right about gelee and oyster. He and I had "French cooking" beat into us at more or less the same time -- during the transition from "classic" to "fresh" -- and that may have something to do with the fact that we share a lot of tastes and prejudices.

Maybe a tomato-vodka aspic with horseradish, chives, fennel leaves and a micro brunois of habanero on a cold oyster? That gets most of the important themes plus it's red and hot. How does that sound?

The whole beautification of the oyster thing is slightly surreal. I like a squeeze of lemon or lime, and a shot of Tapatio or Yucateca Green Habanero on mine. Alcohol is part of the equation, but on the side. I enjoy "complicated" variations like a mignonette on oysters grilled or smoked just until they open -- but each complication takes me farther from what I really like. Oysters Rockefeller is something I associate with near total drunkenness. No inhibitions, a victim of my own depravity, etc., etc., etc. You know what I mean.

Oh Lessa! Lessa? (I can't help myself, brace for it) Lessa come home!

BDL

[24-7cook]

I would have to agree that the whole concept is "interesting" to say the least.

I was steeped (pun intended) in classical French cooking. I am trying to work my way out of it's strict confines.

I wanted to try to conceive how it might work.

If you have beautiful ingredients why mess with them, but I also like to reinterpret the classics on occasion.

I have done what we call Oyster and Pearls
a raw Oyster on lightly pickled Cucumber and Cauliflower Panna Cotta Pearls

[Lessa]

Here I am!!...

In CA where everything is changed (sometimes only for the purpose of making a change) .....oysters are shucked, bed of giant rock salt, yellow gazpacho sauce, spicy gelee, green caviar.

I personally don't care for oysters, so I am really not interested in trying them, but they sell...sorta.

[boar_d_laze]

Originally Posted by Lessa

Here I am!!...

In CA where everything is changed (sometimes only for the purpose of making a change) .....oysters are shucked, bed of giant rock salt, yellow gazpacho sauce, spicy gelee, green caviar.

I personally don't care for oysters, so I am really not interested in trying them, but they sell...sorta.

Lessa,

I'm completely unfamiliar with the preparation. Not Oysters Rockefeller, not at all. Not even in California (where I've lived and cooked most of my life). Oysters Rockefeller? Are you sure? Not oysters something else?

What part of California?

Yellow gazpacho sauce? Gaspacho as in Spanish, cold, bread-thickened soup? Yellow? Why yellow? How yellow? Saffron, turmeric, annatto maybe? So as to look like butter? Or, something with an integral taste just happenend to be yellow? Yellow squash makes sense with gazpacho, but would be wretched with oysters. Maybe not gazpacho but garbanzo?

Bed of rock salt implies the oysters were broiled, but gelee and gazpacho imply they were served cold. Was the salt presentation only? I'm so confused. Could this be a way of serving cold oysters with a topping that made a mock Rockefeller?

Spicy gelee? Then broiled? Or served cold? A gelee like an aspic? Or a foam? Could you see through it? Did it wiggle? What made it spicy? Did you see what I wrote about tomato vodka aspic? Something like that? I actually have (God help me) a method for a vodka-tomato aspic that's sort of like Bloody Mary jello. Weirdly refreshing, actually. Very weirdly.

Green caviar? Probably tobiko with wasabi. That's easy, anyway.

The whole thing sounds very idiosyncratic and cheffish. Whatever it is and whatever it's called it probably only exists at one restaurant or one area. That means that unless you have a very good idea of what's going on, and can communicate it clearly, we can't help you nail it down any better -- or even create your own similar dish. I know I'm groping.

Maybe it's just me,
BDL

[Lessa]

BDL

No, it's not just you. It's cheffish. I'm in orange county. since it's the intartubes, I am reluctant to say where. (You can't hide anything)

The oysters are raw, shucked, a little thickish yellow gazpacho sauce (I will taste it tomorrow and let you know exactly what it is), dot of spicy gelee (like sloppy jello, not foam) and the wasabi caviar. bed of rock salt is purely presentational.

I forgot to mention, I found another hotel pan of it in the walk-in (I was terrified I would have to make more without having tasted it. ) It looks like whoever made it didn't use enough sheet/powder gelatin. red, soft set snot. (yeah, I know but it really doesn't look appealing )

Just so you know, I am a pastry person stuck on a pantry station. No offense intended to line people, I just know what my strengths are. I am so much happier in production.

[boar_d_laze]

No one ever confused garde manger with heaven.

BDL

[Lessa]

yellow tomatoes puree'd