Oyster Loukoumades

Last night I hosted another Greek Supper club, the second annual Greek Christmas-themed dinner. Christmas time signals that we can indulge a little bit with some the appetizers, cheeses, meat, fish and seafood and of course, desserts.

There’s lot of entertaining and fried foods show up more during the holidays than other times of the year. I love oysters – both raw and baked and here we have fried oysters, dunked in my very popular beer batter and fried until golden.

You can use any type of oyster you like but for this appetizer, I buy these tubs of shucked oyster meat. The oyster meat in these tubs comes in the liqueur and they are big so, just cut them up into bite-sized pieces.

Drop the oyster meat in the batter then use a spoon to pick-up a battered piece then drop into your hot oil. Fry until golden, reserve on paper towel and fry off the remaining oysters.

Oyster Loukoumades

(serves 8-10 as an appetizer)

2 cups of fresh shucked oyster meat (cut into bite sized pieces)

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup corn starch

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

approx 1 can of cold beer (355 ml)

sunflower oil for frying

Taramasalata for dipping

1. Drain your oysters and after you have cut them into bite-sized pieces, pat-dry with paper towel.
2. In a bowl, add the flour, corn starch, baking powder and salt and stir to mix. Open your can of beer and whisk enough beer to make a batter that’s a little thinner than pancake batter (you may place oysters and batter in fridge until you are going to fry later that day).
3. Pre-heat your deep fryer or use a deep pot and fill it with about 2-3 inches of oil. Bring up to about 365F and you may place the oyster meat in the batter.
4. When the oil is hot, use a spoon to remove a piece of batter covered oyster meat and insert about 7-8 pieces at a time into the oil. Fry until golden brown and reserve on paper-towel lined platter. Fry remaining oysters in batches.
5. Serve on a plate or bowl with some Taramasalata for dipping and with Kir Yianni Sparkling Rose.

 

© 2013,
Peter Minakis
. All rights reserved.