Steamed Oysters with Fresh Garlic

Lately, I've been craving for steamed scallops..like the ones they serve in Cantonese restaurants. For today it was enough for me to head to the fishmongers straight after work to try and pickup some scallops. Unfortunately they didn't have any. The only scallops they had were already shelled and look somewhat greyish. I decided to give those a pass. I really needed them to be ...

a) fresh, and
b) still attached to one of the shells
c) definitely not have a dull greyish tint !!!

The reason for the shell, is that I wanted to use the shell as a plate to cradle the garlic sauce and glass noodles.

I still really wanted to test out my fresh garlic sauce, so I opted for some pacific oysters instead. Although with the size of the oyster shells (and the pacific ones were the largest available already), I couldn't use the glass noodles. I guess I will just have to save them for next time... :)

Steamed Oysters with Fresh Garlic
As found in many good chinese restaurants, however this recipe is my own

• 1 dozen fresh oysters
• coriander (leaves only - 1 per oyster)
• spring onion (thinly sliced diagonally)
  

Fresh Garlic Sauce:

• 6 large cloves garlic (chopped finely - roughly about 1 per two oysters)
• 2 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons of white sugar
• 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil, and more for later

Mince\chop garlic finely, place into a bowl add soy sauce then mix in the white sugar. Heat up the oil in a clean saucepan. When the oil is really hot, pour the oil over the garlic mixture. This process should cook the garlic instantly. Try to have the saucepan facing away from you when doing this.

Bring some water in a wok to boil with a steaming rack. This will be used as the steamer.

Prepare the oysters on a plate. Spoon about a tablespoon of garlic mixture on top of each oyster. Try to leave the oil behind and scoop out the garlic and soy sauce mix only.

Once the water starts to boil, place the plate of oysters into the wok. Steam for about 4 minutes on medium-high heat.

Place a leaf of coriander on each oyster then top with spring onions. Heat some more oil in the saucepan used before. When the oil is really hot, pour the oil over the oysters. This should sizzle and cook the coriander leaf and spring onions.

Serve immediately

Even though I had to substitute with Oysters, it did turn out quite well and was very yummy. I must try and source out some scallops with shells and try this again with glass noodles.. :)