Serves 4, total time one hour
Ingredients:
- ½ pound smoky bacon, diced, cooked until crispy
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1 medium onion, diced
- ¼ cup diced celery
- ¼ cup diced fennel
- ½ cup hard apple cider*
- 2 Yukon Gold potatoes, diced
- ¼ teaspoon celery seeds, lightly toasted
- 1 pint (about 18) shucked oysters, liquor drained and set aside
- ¼ cup whole milk
- 1 pint heavy cream**
- 2 sprigs thyme
- 1 bay leaf
- Dash of hot sauce
- Juice of ½ lemon
- ½ teaspoon ground white pepper
- 2 tablespoons minced chives, plus more for garnish
- 1 teaspoon salt, plus more as needed
How to:
1. Heat a large heavy bottomed skillet over medium heat. Cook bacon until crisp and browned, 4-5 minutes. Transfer to a paper-towel lined plate to drain.
2. Add butter, onions, celery and fennel to pan, and cook until vegetables begin to soften and look translucent, 4-5 minutes.
3. Deglaze pan with cider, scraping up any browned bits, and continue to cook until liquid is reduced by half, about 3 minutes.
4. Add potatoes, celery seeds, oyster liquor, milk, cream, thyme and bay leaf. Bring to a simmer and cook until potatoes are tender, 15-20 minutes. (To prevent cream from breaking, take care not to let liquid boil.) Remove bay leaf and thyme, and discard.
5. Add crisp bacon and raw oysters to pot, then immediately remove from heat. (Oysters will cook in residual heat from the stew; you want them soft and creamy, not rubbery.) Or you can add the oysters in the last 5-8 minutes of cooking to cook them more as you desire.
6. To serve, stir in hot sauce, lemon juice, white pepper, chives and salt to taste. Add more salt as needed. Garnish with more chives. Serve immediately.
—Adapted from Jeremiah Langhorne of the Dabney, Washington
- you can substitute sparkling wine, apple juice, wine vinegars (red, white, sherry, malt etc) lemon juice or other fruit juices to give a little zing to the stew
- As an alternative, you might use 1.25c of buttermilk as a substitute. Its tangy flavor should go well with the stew.
This would go well with an IPA or dark beer such as Porter or a Guinness Stout.