Roaring Rockefeller oysters

I know New Year’s is still a bit away, but as is our custom, this is the time for Karen-Anne, my fellow blogger, and I to start planning our New Year’s dinner. We’re so lucky that we get to celebrate it together again this year, and that really calls for one knock-out dinner. To tell you the truth, we actually started planning this dinner back in July, and we decided to make it a themed evening inspired by The Great Gatsby and the Roaring ’20s. Can it get more festive, indulgent and decadent? We immediately knew that we were going to do Oysters Rockefeller, so we start off by sharing our version of this dish now. Feel free to use that as an excuse to do a trial (or two) before New Years (that’s what we did :)).

In the coming weeks we’ll be posting more recipes inspired by our Gatsby ’20s theme. But here are some of our ideas so far:

To start off the evening on a proper note:

Champagne cocktail (champagne – lemon – orange liquor)

A string of appetizers including:

Oysters Rockefeller

A little shrimp thing (shrimp – herb cream – red onion – watercress)

Cream Ninon (French pea soup topped with champagne and cream)

Main course:

Veal tenderloin (garnish of pickled onions, lingonberry, bread croutons, thyme) served with a port wine sauce, potatoes and greens

Dessert:

Chocolate domes (chocolate ganache mousse – marinated plums – crunch)

At midnight – served with champagne of course:

Marzipan dessert tower cake (Danish ‘kransekage’)

Chocolates with champagne ganache filling

What do you think? Please feel free to leave a comment below, we’d love to hear your thoughts!

Oysters Rockefeller (for 12 large oysters, or 24 small)

Ingredients

1 dozen (12) large oysters (we used Danish ‘Limfjords’-oysters which are relatively big and meaty. If you use the most common types of North American oysters, which are smaller, I recommend you use double)

A proper oyster knife (sometimes you can buy it at your fishmonger’s)

1 small shallot onion, very finely chopped

3 tbsp frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry

2 tbsp crisp fried bacon, broken into small bits

3 cherry tomatoes finely chopped

2 drops tabasco

3 tbsp fresh breadcrumbs

4 tbsp Gruyere or similar type of cheese, finely shredded

For garnish

4 tbsp good quality mayonnaise

½ tsp lemon juice

½ tsp lemon zest

Freshly ground black pepper

Rock salt

Optional: lemon slices

Directions

1. Prepare the ingredients and mix the chopped tomatoes with tabasco sauce and the shredded cheese with the breadcrumbs. Stir mayonnaise with lemon juice and zest and ground black pepper to taste.

2. Rinse the closed oysters well. Then carefully shuck (open) the oysters by holding them in a tea towel and moving the oyster knife into and then along the hinge until it comes loose. Here’s a quick guide for the best way to open oysters. Remove the top shell and make sure there are no shell bits left. Gently loosen the meat from the shell, and then place all the open oysters on a thick bed of rock salt in an ovenproof dish.

3. Divide the topping ingrediens on top of the oysters with the spinach first and then bacon bits, shallots, tomato-tabasco mix and finally cheese and breadcrumbs. Broil in the oven for just a 4-5 minutes until the cheese has melted and taken on a bit of color.

4. Take out of the oven and garnish with 2-3 little dots of the lemon mayonnaise on each oyster, lemon slices on the side, and serve immediately, preferably with champagne or other nice bubbles.

Enjoy!