Last Updated on 22nd April 2022 by
If you are in love with seafood and especially the ones that come in, shells, that is, the oysters, then there is nothing better than this Mignonette sauce that will help you savour this dish. Mignonette sauce for oysters finds its origin in the South of France, which is blessed with sea oysters in abundance.
If you are Californian, you might have already fallen in love with this seafood delicacy and the amazing sauce that accompanies it. As far as the tradition goes, this Mignonette sauce is served with raw oysters, but you can pair it up with any creamy seafood that you love.
If we go as far as to the origin of “Mignonette,” it originally means a sachet of peppercorns, cloves, or any flavor liquids, but now it simply means cracked peppers.
This sauce has got everything you need with all types of vinegar, pepper, and shallots, a variety of onions used to prepare this sauce. The recipe will surely not disappoint you as it isn’t very difficult. There are many ways to cook this amazing accompaniment, but people always prefer the fresh way. After all, the French know just the exact method to make it with perfect ease.
French Mignonette Sauce For Oysters Recipe
Ingredients
- Shallots (Don’t get bummed as a specific variety of onions) – ½ cup minced, 2 ½ ounces will serve 12 people.
- ¼ cup white vinegar
- ¼ cup unseasoned rice vinegar ( However if you use seasoned rice vinegar, you need to discard sugar and salt)
- Sugar
- Salt
- Peppercorns
Instructions
- As you can guess, Mincing the shallots will be the first step. However, the choice remains with you, whether you want to do it manually or with the help of a grinder, but one thing to keep in mind is not to mince them too finely as a paste. Mince them no thinner than a matchstick, and that would be satisfactory.
- Add the remaining ingredients & mix them. First of all, add white vinegar and unseasoned rice vinegar to minced shallots in a glass bowl or any other unreactive bowl and mix. Then, add salt and sugar according to your taste and finish by adding peppercorns, one of the dish’s main ingredients. Mix them well with the help of a fork, so all the flavors blend.
- Refrigerate!!!! After mixing all the ingredients well, cover the top of the bowl with the help of a foil. Then leave it to refrigerate for a minimum of 4 hours. However, the longer it rests, the better it will taste. So you can also keep it for two days, which will help the flavors blend even more. If you see the peppercorns sinking to the bottom, stir it, and then your dish is ready to plate.
Notes
This freshly prepared Mignonette Sauce can rest in your refrigerator for about a month, and you can continuously enjoy eating fresh raw oysters with this amazing sauce for over a month. All you have to do is prepare this amazing sauce and keep it in your refrigerator, and you are all ready to savor it all month.
Tips For Making Mignonette Sauce For Oysters Great
This is an amazing recipe that will enhance your dining experiences merely by its presence and ease of making. Cutting the refrigeration time, this recipe will require only 15 minutes of your day. However, you can enhance this recipe simply by following some tips and tricks.
First of all, use a grinder to mince the shallots as they will also preserve its juices which adds flavor to the Mignonette Sauce. This way, you will not lose out on any flavor this amazing sauce has to offer.
While serving, keep in mind that Oysters are loose and are not tightly held to their shells; if they are, make sure you loosen their hold. The sauce is served in a different bowl along with a teaspoon. So, everyone scoops out the sauce as per the flavor they require on top of their raw oysters.
Make sure you rest it for longer. However, a 4-hour rest will be fine, but the recipe could add more taste to the raw oysters and seafood you love if given a full rest. While tradition prefers it only with the oysters, you can have it with crab, shrimps, baked clams, and any other seafood you love.
Alternative Recipes
Though this French-style Mignonette Sauce will suit you the best, you can have it numerous other ways, one of them being oysters with champagne vinegar mignonette sauce. Sweet champagne grapes paired up with tangy and sharp mignonette sauce will give your taste buds a perfect balance of flavor.
This dish has the same ingredients, with a champagne vibe being an addition along with some parsley. Basic steps of preparing mignonette also remain the same. Cooking oysters in water and frying in butter, yielding an exquisite dish with the mignonette sauce, oysters and grapes garnished on top of the oysters giving a perfect balance of taste, tagines, and creaminess.
This recipe is surely one alternative to the traditional Mignonette sauce; there are many others, too, that may sway you away. Over the years, every culture and community has given its own flavour to the Mignonette sauce, adding more onto the previous. However, no matter how much change this recipe has endured, its taste and freshness remain the same. Moreover, the way it enhances the creamy oysters is irreplaceable.
Happy Cooking!
I'm Pauline, a mother of four grown children, my passion for cooking stemmed from the joy i get cooking for my family. I love to try new dishes, especially when dining out but creating and sharing my own recipes is my favourite thing to do!
