To cut the richness, serve with a little pickle or even bean sprouts. Another kind of hot sauce, like Crystal, would be great here too! This recipe was adapted from Diana Danxia Zheng’s Jia! The Food of Swatow and The Teochew Diaspora (Gwan-Im, 2018).
Course: Appetizer
Cuisine: Chinese
Servings: 2
Ingredients
Starch batter
2tablespoonstapioca or sweet potato starch
1tablespoonrice flourThai-made or Bob’s Red Mill
1pinchwhite pepper
½teaspoonfish sauce
½cupwarm water
Egg mixture
2eggs
1teaspoonShaoxing rice wine or dryfino sherry
½teaspoonfish sauce
1pinchwhite pepper
Remaining ingredients
1green onion, thinly sliced, white parts separated from green parts
2garlic clovesminced
4ouncessmall raw oystersdrained (a little residual liquid is fine)
3tablespoonsoillard, or chicken fat, divided
3or 4 sprigs cilantrocoarsely chopped
Srirachaoptional but encouraged
Instructions
For the starch batter, in a measuring cup, whisk together the starch, rice flour, white pepper, fish sauce, and water. Set near the stove.
In a separate measuring cup or bowl, beat together the eggs with the rice wine, fish sauce and white pepper. Keep near the starch batter.
Put the green onion white parts and garlic in a small bowl so you can quickly dump them into the pan; place near the batter and egg. Set the remaining green onion parts aside for finishing the dish.
As needed, cut the oysters into 1-inch chunks (think a big cherry). Keep in a bowl and set by the line-up of ingredients along with the green onion and garlic.
(If this is your first time making oyster omelets, consider making 2 batches in a small (8-inch) skillet so you can practice. Otherwise, go for the single batch!) Over medium heat, warm 1 tablespoons of oil in a medium (10-inch) well-seasoned carbon steel skillet or non-stick skillet. Whisk the starch batter and pour into the skillet. Swirl to cover the entire bottom and maybe go up the sides. Let the mixture bubble and cook for about 1 minute to set. It will look glossy and gelatinous.
Raise the heat to high, pour 1 tablespoon of oil around the edge of the starch circle. Pour the egg mixture into the pan. Like with making a regular omelet, use a spatula to pull back the pan contents to allow egg to flow into the pan and cook. As the egg sets, use the spatula to cut the egg-and-starch mixture into pieces and flip them over to brown both sides. Total cooking time for this phase is about 1 minute.
Push the yellow pieces to one side of the pan. Lower the heat to medium-high or medium, add the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil, and then dump in the green onion and garlic. Stir and let cook for 5 to 10 seconds to aromatize. Then add the oysters, stir-fry quickly to combine all the ingredients. When the oysters are just cooked through, as little as 10 seconds(!), turn off the heat.
Stir in half of the remaining green onion parts, then transfer to a plate. Garnish with the remaining green onion and cilantro. Serve with Sriracha and invite diners to sauce things up.