Name: Poached Oysters with Shrimps and Cucumber
Yield: Serves Four as a Starter
Cuisine: United Kingdom
Ingredients: 2 teaspoons chopped chives; ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper; 50ml (1 ¾fl oz) dry white wine; 1 shallot, peeled and very finely chopped; 75g (2 ¾oz) cold unsalted butter, in small pieces; 1 cucumber; 2 teaspoons (double) cream or crème fraîche; 25ml (1fl oz) white wine vinegar; 100g (3½oz) shrimps; 12 rock oysters

Preparation info

Serves
Four
as a Starter

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

A Long and Messy Business

By Rowley Leigh

Published 2018

About

I use the word ‘shrimps’ in the English sense – to signify very small prawns, barely 1cm (½in) long: ‘jumbo’ shrimp are not called for (they are, actually, a different species). Three or four of these oysters will make a good starter.

Ingredients

12 rock oysters
1 cucumber
75g (2 ¾oz

Method

Open the oysters, then slide the knife under the oyster to cut away the adductor muscle and lift the oyster out of its shell. The oysters should be kept in their own juice, preferably after it has been strained through a fine sieve to remove any grit. The oysters can be kept in the fridge like this for a couple of days. Wash the shells in cold water and arrange in a heatproof dish.

Peel