Cheap oyster pasta? Piffle you say? Oysters are actually relative newcomers in the luxury food realm. These filter-feeding creatures were once a food staple for the poor in coastal areas. The Louisiana Creole Po'boy sandwich - lemon-squeezed deep-fried oysters in a buttered french baguette is a great example of this tradition.
They are best eaten raw and soon after harvest - sunk straight down the gullet with a good dribble of oystery juices. Unfortunately, thanks to the gourmet reinvention of this mollusc, strugglers have been priced out of eating fresh oysters on the half shell. Canned, smoked oysters, however, are still cheap and gorgeous. Texturally, they leave a little to be desired when straight out of the can. Rinsed of their tin liquid (which isn't a taste sensation) and blended with some pepper, olive oil, lemon juice and garlic or onion they make an excellent spread on toasted bread. They are also delicious when slowly simmered into sauces, such as the one in this pasta recipe.
500g packet pappardelle
(Aldi has some excellent cheap egg pasta, otherwise any pappardelle or fettucine will do)
2 onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tins smoked oysters, rinsed
2 rashers bacon, cut into strips
300g mushrooms, sliced
1/2 bulb fennel or 4 stalks celery, finely sliced
1/2 cup dry white wine
(I keep a decent cask, like De Bortoli Verdelho in the fridge for these kinds of things. It keeps longer than a bottle and cheap cheap cheap!)
300mL cream
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1/4 bunch parsley, chopped
olive oil, pepper
Fry onion and garlic on medium heat in a little olive oil for 5-10 minutes until translucent and golden. Add bacon and fry for another 5 minutes. Add mushrooms, stir for another 5, then the fennel and ditto. Add wine and reduce. Add cream, then oysters and reduce to a simmer for 10 or so minutes. Keep it simmering away while you cook the pasta.
Bring 2 litres of water to a rolling boil, add pappardelle and cook until al dente (soft but slightly firm to the bite). Drain, but don't rinse (the starchy residue on pasta helps the sauce stick tight).
Mix with sauce. Serve with a good crack of pepper and topped with a handful of parsley.
Feeds 6 and freezes well.
Note: If you happen to be handy to an oyster farm, you can often get great deals on fresh oysters, either in the shell or in a jar. Going this route, don't add the oysters to the sauce until about a minute before you finish simmering - they're better under-done.
Sexy oyster image 1 comes from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons from the user Chris 73 and is freely available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Open_Oyster_Lyon_market.JPG under the creative commons cc-by-sa 2.5 license.
http://povalicious.blogspot.com/
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