chiuchow pickled oysters 潮州醃蠔

I watched every episodes of this Netflix documentary about cuisines in Chaoshan 潮汕 and really enjoyed learning dishes that I didn't know. One that piqued my interest is the pickled oysters 潮州醃蠔. As it is a food and culture documentary there is no recipe nor the ingredients are listed, except the few that were mentioned. As soon as I watch this may be 2 minutes segment on this dish I had a very good idea how to make it even though I have never tasted it. I can taste it in my imagination. It is analogous to ceviche in which raw seafoods are cured in vinegar or citric juice, except high salinity condiments are used.

I bought some chili peppers, garlics, and cilantro intending to experiment with this Chiuchow pickled oysters 潮州醃蠔. I wanted first to make a small batch as an experiment.

Ingredient of this Chiuchow pickled oysters 潮州醃蠔:

• chopped garlic
• cilantro
• Serrano chili peppers
• mini red sweet peppers
• fish sauce
• soy sauce
• small oysters
• white granule sugar

Note that no vinegar is used for this dish.

the red peppers are sweet while the green Serrano are hot

a lot of chopped cilantro

just mix gently and let it sit for 1 1/2 hours - duration depends on the size of oysters

According to the video the brining takes about two hours. I monitored it and by 1 1/2 hours I decided that it is enough time as the contents sunk quite a bit into the brine. I made a meal out of it together with some leftover three cup chicken.

you definitely want to eat this with a bowl of piping hot rice - the saltiness and hot chili make the rice taste sweet

To me this is delicious. However if you have never tasted briny ethnic food and prefer hot dogs and hamburger I do not recommend you dive head first into this dish. If you like raw oysters a pretty good chance you will warm up to this.