What dish will be your legacy? If it’s the holidays, this dish might be a contender.
Do you have to be rich or famous to leave a legacy? While we seem to use the word “legacy” more often with the celebrated and renowned, I’m firmly convinced that all of us have a place to leave behind the abundance of our lives. And, if you think about it, many of those memories, or legacies, are based around food and the celebration of life with food.
No matter what happens to those around me in life, I will always treasure my family and friends through the food they lovingly prepared for me. This is just a sampling of dishes at the top of my list: my mama’s collard greens, Grandma Bena’s field peas, Aunt Janice’s cabbage and “hard cornbread,” a cousin Auline’s “chicken slick,” or a grapefruit salad with poppy seed dressing from Anne Haskins, Pableaux Johnson’s red beans and rice, and Karl Knudson’s Triple P fish (panko, Parmesan, and pecans), Linda Johnson’s mac and cheese, and Rachel Thomas’s deviled eggs. All have brought me profound joy at the table.
What got me thinking about this is my first grandson. He’s already headed in the direction of being a foodie. His father is a chef, and his mother (my daughter) has always enjoyed great food.
What will be the dish for which I’m remembered? Have you thought about what yours might be?
Oysters, when in season, are always part of any gathering of my clan. I love that my daughter had no fear of a raw oyster at an early age, and as an adult will fight you for them. I’ll crack open a few raw ones for the half shell and then make a pan roast.
This recipe has been part of the holidays for 20 years at my house and always on Christmas Eve for my late father-in-law, his eyes twinkling in anticipation. If I didn’t make the roast, I’d be tarred and feathered. I even had the guts to prepare this for former Magnolia Grill chef Ben Barker and his family to help bring in the new century. Chef Jason Smith has been known to run this recipe on the menus of his restaurant group, which includes the now-closed 18 Seaboard.
There are other recipes I know that we be referred to as “Daddy’s or Grandaddy’s recipe,” but I know this pan roast will be my food legacy to my daughter, her son, and his children to come.
To sit at a table, with anyone, family, friends or colleagues, is a moment of genuine sharing: the food, the stories and the lives. What will your story be on the plates of the future? I bet it will be an impressive one.
Serving suggestions
Serve with: If using this roast as a main course, a simple fall salad of greens, pears, walnuts and blue cheese, with sherry vinaigrette. Serve this salad in the French manner, after the pan roast.
To drink: Champagne always works with oysters. But a Muscadet de Sevre-et-Maine is another great choice.
Fred’s Pan Roast of Oysters
2 cups, heavy cream
1 sprig, fresh thyme (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
2 leeks, white part only, cleaned, and thinly sliced
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons, dry white wine (vermouth is suggested)
8 ounces Shiitake mushrooms, stemmed and sliced
3 pints, shucked oysters, with liquor
20 light green, flat-leaf spinach leaves, cleaned, dried, and cut into chiffonade
No more than four hours before serving, add heavy cream to a 3-quart saucepan. Bring the cream to a slight simmer, over medium heat. Cook until the cream has reduced by half. Do not let the cream come to a full boil. Use a ladle in the cream to stir the cream if it gets too hot and begins to foam. The reduction process will take 30-45 minutes.
Strain the cream into a warm Thermos or double boiler and hold until ready to serve.
As the cream reduces, blanch the leeks in boiling water for 30 seconds, strain and put in an ice bath. If you are doing this while the cream is reducing, check on the cream and give it a stir. After a minute or two, drain the leeks, and refrigerate until needed.
Heat the butter and wine in a large non-stick sauté pan. When a full boil has been reached, add the mushroom slices and sauté for two minutes. If doing this ahead, remove the mushrooms and any liquid. Reserve.
When it’s showtime, re-warm the mushrooms in that large sauté pan. Add the leeks and the oysters. Cook over moderate heat until the oysters are just beginning to curl, usually about 4-6 minutes. Stir in the reduced cream, just barely re-warm, no more than 2 minutes. Adjust seasoning, if needed, with additional salt and pepper.
Serve in warmed, shallow soup bowls. Equally divide the chiffonade of spinach over the servings. Immediately serve.
Yield: Serves 6 as a main course, 10-12 as a first course
This story was originally published December 23, 2019 at 9:54 AM.