Oysters on the Half Shell with Pickled Shallot Vinegar

It's week four of my online cooking class, Surf & Turf at Cheeseslave. This week, Ann Marie taught us how to pick fresh seafood and we learned several recipes for uncooked seafood dishes, like ceviche and sashimi. She also showed us a great way to shuck raw oysters.


Oysters are extremely good for our health and are listed in The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth. According to author Johnny Bowden, a 1 cup serving of oysters supplies more than 100 percent of the recommended daily value of Zinc. Zinc is important to healthy immune function and fertility, among other things. Oysters are also a mood elevator as they are rich in the amino acid tyrosine, which the brain converts to dopamine. Before dealing with raw oysters at home, make sure you read up about how to buy and store fresh shellfish. Raw oysters are safe to eat, if handled properly.


A few weeks ago, I ordered an oyster knife online from Golda's Kitchen, in anticipation of this lesson. Yesterday I picked up 8 small fresh oysters from the market and today I got down to business! I was pretty apprehensive about the process. Not sure if any of you have seen Bob Blumer's Glutton For Punishment? He participated in an "Oyster Shuck Off" in one episode. Let's just say there was a lot of blood. As it turns out, oyster shucking is not that hard, or that dangerous! Actually, it's incredibly easy. I made it through my eight in under 10 minutes, and had only minor difficulties with two of them. But... this post isn't about how to shuck oysters. I am certainly no expert. There are loads of videos on YouTube that can help you out. All I can tell you is to make sure you have a proper oyster knife, a sturdy wooden cutting board, a clean dish towel and a steady hand! And DON'T STRESS! And if someone tells you a butter knife will work just fine to shuck an oyster, DO NOT BELIEVE IT. You need an oyster knife. You can pick one up at most any kitchen supply or speciality shop for about $10.

OXO Good Grips Oyster Knife
I love topping my raw oysters with a squeeze of fresh lemon, a dash of Tabasco, a little bit of grated fresh horseradish or pickled shallot vinegar - but not all together! I made the Pickled Shallots during week three of the Preserve the Bounty Challenge. French Food at Home does a pickled shallot on fresh oysters. My favourite seafood restaurant, Rodney's Oyster House also serves their fresh oysters on the half shell with a pickled shallot vinegar. It's delicious! Pickled shallots are also a great condiment for many other things, like salads, sandwiches, antipasti platters, meat and poultry!



Pickled Shallot Vinegar

2 large shallots
1 1/2 cups red wine vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 sprig fresh thyme

1. Peel shallots and slice thinly.

2. In a medium saucepan, mix together vinegar, sugar and salt. Bring to a boil, stirring often to dissolve sugar. Add shallots and stir.

3. Bring to a simmer and cook for one minute. Add thyme sprig. Remove from heat and let cool at room temperature.

4. Transfer mixture to a glass canning jar. Cover and refrigerate for at least one week before using. Can be stored in the refrigerator for up to two months.

Alternatively - if you want to heat process your canned shallots for shelf stable storage, complete the directions up to step 3, but do not let the mixture cool. Pack shallots into cleaned and sanitized jars with a small sprig of thyme. Fill with hot vinegar mixture to 1/2 inch below the rim. Cap your jars and process in a water bath canner for 10 minutes.

Preserve the Bounty - Week 4 Wrap Up

Week four of the Preserve the Bounty Challenge is my favourite so far, and the easiest. Preserving in alcohol! Who doesn't love a little drunken fruit?

My goals for this challenge:

- use fresh, local fruit from the Farmer's Market
- use alcohol I already have in my liquor cabinet (to save $)
- not use vodka (that's too easy!)


For my first creation, I improvised Jenny's recipe for Vanilla Rum Plums. I used a mix of small local black plums from Osoyoos and larger black plums from California. A bit of a cheat but they were in my fridge for some reason, so I figured I would use them up. I used a 1 litre canning jar. I had to cut the larger Californian plums into quarters (around the pit) to fit into the jar. The local plums I just pricked with a fork and popped them into the jar whole. Then I added 1/2 cup of sugar, 1 teaspoon clear vanilla and enough Vanilla flavoured rum to cover all the fruit and fill the jar. As luck would have it, I had EXACTLY enough rum left in the bottle to fill the jar, right down to the last drop!


Next I preserved fresh, local blueberries in Peach Schanpps! This time I used a 500ml canning jar. I rinsed the blueberries and picked through them to remove stems, leaves and any unripe ones. I filled the jar with blueberries (just under 2 cups), added 1/4 cup of sugar and topped it all off with enough Peach Schnapps to cover the fruit and fill the jar.


My last creation, as posted the other day, cherries in Brandy! I couldn't decide if I should leave the stems/pitts intact and use the cherries for garnish or pitt and de-stem them for use in desserts and baking. I decided to do both. I made one 500ml jar of de-stemmed and pitted cherries and one 500ml with stems and pitts. The latter will be used in drinks and on top of desserts. The former will be used inside tarts, pies and other baking/cooking applications. I followed the same process as above. Cherries, 1/4 cup sugar per jar, alcohol to fill. For all my creations I chose not to simmer the alcohol with the sugar. I didn't want to jeopardize the alcohol content by heating it. Instead I used the good old "shake" method - put the fruit, sugar and liquid in a jar, secure tightly and shake your ass off! I continued to shake the jars every couple hours, just to ensure all the sugar was dissolved, then I stored my jars in the bottom of a cupboard. Every couple days I go and shake them up again.

Now I have to wait at least a month before I test my creations. I'm looking forward to Vanilla Rum Plums over ice cream. And Blueberry Peach Schanpps Martinis. I'm also thinking of trying out some Cherry Brandy Tarts. Oh the fun I will have this fall!

Cherries in Brandy

Week four of Preserve the Bounty and Jenny challenged us to preserve using alcohol. Fruit and booze. How can you go wrong with that? Along with making a jar of Jenny's Vanilla Rum Plums, I also put together a jar of cherries preserved in brandy, with cherries from the farmer's market.

You will need:

Fresh cherries*
Brandy (can substitute vodka)
1/3 cup sugar
1 L canning jar, snap lid and ring

*You can either pit and de-stem the cherries or leave them intact. I chose to make a jar of each. The ones with stems on will be perfect as garnish for drinks and on dessert. The ones with no stems and pits will be perfect for baking.

1. Add cherries to a clean, sterilized 1 litre canning jar. Add 1/3 cup sugar.

2. Fill jar with Brandy to the bottom of the neck, leaving at least a half inch of head space at the top. Secure lid tightly.

3. Shake jar well to dissolve sugar. Leave jar on the counter for a few minutes for the remaining sugar to settle, then shake again until all the sugar is dissolved.

4. Store jar in a dark, cool place. Turn and shake lightly 3-4 times a week. Wait at least 4 weeks before eating.

Eat cherries on their own, in pies or on top of desserts. When the cherries are done you will have about 3/4 of a litre of delicious cherry brandy! The longer the cherries and brandy sit and mingle, the better the results!

Now... what to do with your cherry flavoured brandy? Mix up a drink!

Cherry Cola:
4 oz cherry brandy
8 oz Coca Cola
1 preserved cherry for granish

1. Pour brandy over ice in a tall glass. Add Coke. Garnish with a cherry!

Cherry Champagne Cocktail:
1 oz cherry brandy
3 oz champagne or sparkling white wine
2 preserved cherries

1. Drop two cherries in a champagne glass. Add cherry brandy. Top with champagne or sparkling wine.

Check here for more recipes using Cherry Brandy. It's from the BOLS website, makers of commercial Cherry Brandy. But be happy because you saved $20.99 (BC Liquor Store price) by making you own!


This post is linked to Slightly Indulgent Tuesday at Simply Sugar & Gluten Free

Cranberry Orange Butter

Another Preserve the Bounty Challenge from week 2 - preserving in oil or fat. Do you think I have enough compound butters yet!?

This is an extra special compound butter so it deserves its own post. See the original compound butters post here. In this application we use frozen cranberries as they are easier to mix into the butter and easier to mince in a food processor.

1/4 cup frozen cranberries
1 tsp honey (preferably orange blossom)
zest from 1 large orange
1/2 cup soft butter

1. Place frozen cranberries in a food processor and process until minced. Place processed cranberries in a medium bowl.

2. Add orange zest and honey and mix together.

3. Blend in softened butter, using a firm spatula. Spread butter and mix well to get cranberry mixture incorporated throughout.

4. Spoon blended butter onto a sheet of parchment. Roll one end of the parchment over the butter. Using your hands, form and roll the butter in a small log. Twist the ends of the parchment to close. (Mine looks more like a 2x4 than a log, but that's okay too!)

5. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Great on muffins, toast and pancakes!

Try blueberries and lemon zest next time!

Preserve the Bounty - Week 3 Wrap Up

Retro poster from Google Images.

I started the Preserve the Bounty Challenge in week three so I had a bit of catching up to do.

I skipped the week one challenge as I wasn't sure about fermenting and I'm still not. Sauerkraut and Kimchi? No thanks. I'm thinking about trying preserved lemons, but as of right now I don't see the point in doing it for this particular challenge, since lemons aren't local to my region. (The idea is to preserve your local produce for use in winter months when it won't be available. Since lemons aren't local - I have to buy them no matter what time of year it is.)

Week two's challenge involved preserving things in oil or fat. I caught up on this one by making four Compound Butters using my garden herbs - 2 1/2 cups of butter total. I also canned roasted red peppers in a mixture of oil and vinegar. I can tell you, I won't be canning roasted red peppers any time soon. Very time consuming for very little reward. I got one 500ml jar for my troubles.


With that out of the way I set to work on the challenge for week three - preserving in vinegar. My first attempt was Pickled Ginger. I ended up with two 500ml jars. I followed that up with Grandma's Pickles in a Bucket and was rewarded with two 1L jars. I later made two more 500ml jars. After a visit to the farmer's market, things really got out of control. Using 500ml jars, I ended up with two jars of dill pickles, one jar of pickled dill carrots, one jar of pickled dills AND carrots, one jar of pickled sweet peppers and one jar of sweet pickled carrots. I also go one 1L jar of pickled shallot vinegar! I should admit that I did cheat on this challenge and used the water bath canning method to boil many of the pickled products, just to make them shelf stable. I don't have room in my fridge for this many refrigerator pickle products! The Pickled Garlic and Grandma's Pickles in a Bucket were made without heat processing and are stored in the fridge.

Unrelated to this weeks challenge, I also canned fresh tomatoes, similar to what my Grandma makes. There is nothing better than tomatoes canned in water for making fresh tomato sauce in the winter. I used this recipe. It was incredibly easy. I got two one litre jars out of my tomato bounty (about 12-14 large tomatoes). I might make more next week after I pick up more tomatoes at the farmer's market. Again, I cannot express how awesome fresh canned tomatoes are in homemade tomato sauce. I even have a recipe using them!

Back to pickling... after making Ricardo's Beet Cakes, I popped the left over beets into a jar and pickled them too! One 500ml jar of sweet pickled beets. I can't wait to eat those! The only thing I didn't pickle this week were my farmer's market blueberries and cherries, but don't think I didn't consider it! Instead of pickling cherries, I canned some in a light sugar syrup (I followed this method). Another little canning bonus to go along with the tomatoes!










Preserved for Week 3:
- Pickled Garlic 2x500ml = 1 litre (not pictured)
- Pickles in a Bucked 2x1L and 2x500ml = 3 litres
- Dill Pickles 2x500ml = 1 litre
- Dill Carrots 2x500ml = 1 litre
- Pickled Sweet Peppers = 500ml
- Pickled Sweet Carrots = 500ml
- Pickled Shallots = 1L
- Pickled Sweet Beets = 500ml
Total Preserved: 8.5 litres
Bonus: 2 litres Canned Tomatoes and 1.5 litres canned cherries!

Grandma's Pickles in a Bucket

More pickling for week 3 of the Preserve the Bounty Challenge!

This recipe comes from my Grandma. My Grandmother is the Queen of Canning. Her canned tomatoes and pickled beets are stuff of legends (seriously)! I've always said if there is a natural disaster or the Armageddon, I'm going to Grandma's house. There is enough canned food there to feed an army, or my large family! While over for lunch one day she put a dish of the sweetest, most delicious pickles on the table. I ate the entire bowl full myself - and I didn't feel bad about it either because Grandma just went to the fridge and filled the bowl right up again. I might have eaten those ones too!

These are no cook, refrigerator pickles. Grandma keeps her pickles in a giant plastic ice cream pail. I don't have a pail quite that large, nor the space to store it, so I made my pickles in batches and packed them into 1 litre canning jars. Grandma's original recipe also calls for TWICE as much sugar as vinegar. I reduced the sugar slightly in my own brine, but for the recipe post I have left it as is.

2 cups white vinegar
4 cups sugar
2 tbsp salt
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp celery seed (or celery salt)
1 tsp mustard seed
2 long English cucumbers, thinly sliced
1/2 sweet onion, thinly sliced
1 red pepper, thinly sliced
2 1L canning jars, sanitized per manufacturers directions

1. Add sugar, vinegar, salt, turmeric, celery seed and mustard seed to a saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil and stir until it becomes a syrupy consistency and sugar is completely dissolved.

2. Pack sliced veggies into sanitized 1L canning jars. Fill jars with syrup to just below the neck, leaving at least 1/2 inch of head space.

3. Leave in the fridge for at least 48 hours before eating. Shake jars a few times a day.

4. Keep refrigerated. Will keep in the fridge for up to one year.

Pickled Garlic

For week three of Preserve the Bounty Jenny challenged us to preserve something in vinegar. I love this challenge. The pickling possibilities are endless! My first creation - pickled garlic. I made one jar with thyme and chilies and one jar with thyme, oregano, mustard seed and chilies. The basic recipe is below. Adjust as you see fit - use any dried herb or seasoning blend that suits your fancy!



6-8 heads of garlic
2 cups white vinegar
3/4 cup dry white wine (substitute water)
3 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp mustard seed
4 whole dried Thai chilies

1. Peel and separate garlic into cloves. Place into a bowl and set aside.

2. Sterilize two 500ml canning jars according to manufactures directions (I run mine through the dishwasher. The heat cycle does a great job at sanitizing).

3. In a large saucepan, bring vinegar, wine, salt, sugar, thyme and mustard seed to a boil. Stir to ensure salt and sugar is dissolved. Add garlic cloves to the mixture and bring to a boil. Immediately remove from heat. Remove garlic from vinegar mixture using a slotted spoon.

4. Fill each jar with garlic and two chili peppers. Ladle hot vinegar mixture into jars. Fill up jar to just below the neck, leaving 1/2 inch head space at the top. Seal with heated snap lid and band.

5. Let cool to room temperature then place in the refrigerator. Leave at least 2-3 weeks before eating. The longer they sit, the better. After opening, keep refrigerated. Will last in fridge indefinitely, as long as garlic is immersed in vinegar solution.

Note: What does it mean if your pickled garlic turns blue?! Apparently it's normal. A few of my pieces had a blue tinge to them, near the root ends. Garlic contains sulfate which reacts with copper, creating a compound that will trun the garlic blue. It is still safe to eat and should not affect the taste. To prevent the reaction, the garlic needs to be heated through to de-activate the sulfer (this is why you add the cloves to the boiled vinegar mixture before canning). Another way to avoid the blue is to use purified water if you rinse your garlic cloves as standard tap water may contain trace amounts of copper, and avoid using copper pots.

Preserved Roasted Red Peppers

Still on week two of the Preserve the Bounty Challenge. I preserved herbs and citrus in butterfat but I still wanted to try preserving something in oil. I searched Google high and low for a recipe for food preserved in olive oil. My requirements were that the recipe had to be something I would actually use and it had to be SAFE (home preserving non-acidic produce in oil is not recommended by the US FDA).

I came across a recipe at Honest-Food.net. The site is titled "Hunter Angler Gardener Cook" and is full of information about finding, cooking and preserving food.

In this recipe, the peppers are roasted in the oven, dredged through a vinegar solution, packed into jars, covered in more vinegar and then topped with olive oil. It`s pickling and oil packing in one. The added acidity from the vinegar is sure to eliminate any bacteria growth concerns. These roasted red peppers can be eaten as is, added to a sandwich or used in sauces or soups.

I followed the recipe to a tee. It`s lengthy so I am not going to re-post here. Just go on over to Honest-Food.net and check it out.

Preserving roasted red peppers is a long and involved process. I didn't enjoy it and I won't be doing it again any time soon! All that work and I only got one 500ml jar out of it! Then again, I only processed three large peppers... any more and I would still be at it! I'm confident that when the time comes to use the peppers, I efforts will have been worth it!

Compound Butters

Since I joined the Preserve the Bounty Challenge late, my first challenge was for week three. I planned on waiting until the end to try weeks one and two. Week two involved preserving things in oil or fat. At first I wasn't sure how this one would work out. I'm not interested in preserving my fresh herbs in pure olive oil. I would never use a product like that. I thought about preserving garlic in oil but then learned about the food safety risks associated to this method of preserving non-acidic foods, like garlic (read about it here. Scroll to the bottom). I was pleased to learn that compound butters, that is butter mixed with fresh herbs and other seasonings, is considered a way of preserving fresh foods. Perfect! I love butter (as you may have noticed), and I have an abundance of herbs in my garden. I decided to do a double challenge to start and complete weeks two and three in only one week. Time to get creative and whip up some fun, festive and flavourful compound butters!

See a good tutorial on the Tasty Kitchen Blog.

Jenny, from The Nourished Kitchen (the site hosting the Preserve the Bounty Challenge), has a great recipe for Wild Mushroom Butter.

Just take softened, unsalted butter and blend together with herbs and seasonings of your choice. I made my compound butters in quarter cup portions (four portions per large block of butter) as this was easiest to work with and I get to make four different varieties at a time! To the butter I added about a tablespoon or two of fresh chopped herbs, or a teaspoon or two of zest or spices. The measurements are completely arbitrary. Add as much as you want. You cannot screw this one up! Check the Tasty Kitchen Blog for tips on rolling the butter once blended. As a food safety tip, I read that you should add a half teaspoon of lemon juice or other acid to the mix to ensure there is no bad bacteria. Fat promotes the growth of botulism bacteria in non-acidic foods, so if you are adding garlic to your butter, make sure you add a splash of lemon juice just to be safe. It's also recommended to keep butters refrigerated or frozen at all times. Do not leave out at room temperature longer than it takes to use it up! As well, if you try any of the cheese butters, do not make more than you can use within a week. The other butters will keep well in the refrigerator for several months and even longer in the freezer.



Chive & Cracked Pepper Butter: Fresh chives, chopped fine and a few good twists of fresh cracked pepper. Great on steak or vegetables! (pictured right)

Lemony Basil Butter: Fresh lemon basil, chopped and the zest of one lemon. Alternatively use regular basil. Awesome for fish and seafood (pictured middle)

Garlic & Parsley Butter: Fresh chopped Italian parsley and 3-4 cloves of garlic, minced. You may want to lightly sauté your garlic for a more mild flavour. For this one I used a half cup of butter because I figured I would use it more than the other two. Perfect for bread, seafood, steak, baked potatoes or anything! (pictured left)

Blue Cheese Butter: Crumbled blue cheese and a pinch of salt. Awesome on steak.

Three Cheese Butter: Just like the one served on baked potatoes at The Keg. Fresh grated Parmesan, Asiago and cream cheese, Boursin or Laughing Cow.

Steakhouse Butter: Lightly sauté minced shallots, garlic and parsley then cream into butter with a dash of Worcestershire sauce and lemon juice.

What compound butter combinations can you come up with?

Preserve the Bounty Challenge

While surfing the net the other day, I came across The Nourished Kitchen - Preserve the Bounty Challenge. I decided to sign up. What better way to continue healthy, local, wholesome eating than by preserving the summer harvest?

In the month of August. we’re setting aside our pressure canners and we’ll be preserving the bounty of the summer season naturally while optimizing the nutrition of the foods we put up for winter. Over the course of 5 weeks we’ll cover sun-drying, oil curing, freezing, fermentation and salt-curing – traditional techniques that optimize nutrition and don’t heat up the kitchen like canning.

I missed week one (fermentation) and week two (preserving in oil & fat), but I signed up just in time to receive instructions for week three (preserving in vinegar). Sometime during the month or at the end of the challenge I will go back and try the challenges from weeks one and two.

For now - preserving in vinegar. Well, that's easy. Pickled green beans, pickled carrots, picked garlic, pickled beets. I make fabulous spicy pickled dill beans. And I might try my hand at pickled peppers. You name it - If it's available at the market tomorrow, I'm going to pickle it. The catch is I can't boil the finished product to ensure a tight, secure seal on the jars. That's no problem though. Vinegar and salt are fabulous preservatives and as long as I store my goods in the refrigerator, I will have no problems with bacteria or other nasties.

In other food preserving news, I bought a food dehydrator. My plan is to dry most of the herbs in my garden (basil, parsley, lemon basil, rosemary, thyme, chives), make my own dehydrated minced onion and garlic and dry some blueberries and strawberries for use in cereal and baking in the winter. I may even try my hand at fruit leathers and jerky!

(As it turns out, drying and dehydrating was the challenge for week 5! And instead of salt curing, we preserved with alcohol in week four.)

Do you have any experience with preserving in vinegar or with food dehydrators?