Oysters Rockefeller

Cook Time: 25 min
8 servings as an starter
Times: Prep: 20 min
Cook: 25 min
Total: 45 min

Ingredients
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/3 cup bread crumbs
2 shallots, chopped
2 cups chopped fresh spinach
1/4 cup Pernod
Salt and pepper, to taste
Dash red pepper sauce
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
1 tablespoon chopped chervil or parsley
2 dozen oysters, on the half shell
Rock salt
Lemon wedges, for garnish

Method

Melt butter in a skillet. Sauté the garlic for 2 minutes to infuse the butter. Place the bread crumbs in a mixing bowl and add half the garlic butter, set aside. To the remaining garlic butter in the skillet, add shallots and spinach, cook for 3 minutes until the spinach wilts. Deglaze the pan with Pernod. Season with salt and pepper, add a dash of red pepper sauce. Allow the mixture to cook down for a few minutes. Finish off the bread crumbs by mixing in olive oil, Parmesan and chervil, season with salt and pepper. Spoon 1 heaping teaspoon of the spinach mixture on each oyster followed by a spoonful of the bread crumb mixture. Sprinkle a baking pan amply with rock salt. Arrange the oysters in the salt to steady them. Bake in a preheated 450 degree F oven for 10 to 15 minutes until golden. Serve with lemon wedges and red pepper sauce.
Mignoette Sauce

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3/4 cup champagne vinegar
2 shallots, minced
2 tablespoons cracked black peppercorns
1 tablespoon chopped chervil
1/2 lemon, juiced

In a small bowl whisk together all ingredients. Cover and chill 1 hour before serving with oysters. Yield: 3/4 cup

Oysters Rockefeller is a dish of oysters with a sauce, made up of eighteen ingredients, including absinthe. It is usually served in oyster shells.

1850 - Antoine Alciatore, the original owner of Antoine’s Restaurant in New Orleans, Louisiana, made a specialty dish of snails called “snails Bourgignon” which was very popular. The restaurant, located on Rue St. Louis in the New Orleans French Quarter, was opened in 1840, and Antoine’s is the country’s oldest family-run restaurant. 

In 1874, Antoine being in ill-heath took leave of his family, with the management of the restaurant in his wife’s hands. He felt he had not much longer to live and wished to die and be buried in his birthplace in France. He told his wife he did not want her to watch him deteriorate and said as he left; “As I take boat for Marseilles, we will not meet again on earth.” He died within the year. 

1899 - When Jules Alciatore took over the business, the taste for snails had subsided, and also there was a shortage of French snails. He wanted to use a local product in order to avoid any difficulty in  procuring it. He choose oysters and adapted the snail recipe in 1899 to use the gulf oysters.

Jules Alciatore is known as a pioneer in the art of cooking oysters (as they were rarely cooked before this time). According to legend, it is said that a customer exclaimed with delight after eating this dish, “Why, this is as rich as Rockefeller!”
The dish was given the name Rockefeller because the green was the color of greenbacks and the whole dish was so rich that he wanted a name that would signify the “richest in the world.” The first name to come to his mind was John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937), a name once connoted the absolute pinnacle of wealth and position. No other American dish has received so much praise and attention as Oysters Rockefeller.

The original recipe is a closely-guarded Antoine’s secret, though it has been imitated, adapted, and evolved in a host of ways. The original oysters Rockefeller is said to have been made with watercress, not spinach. Jules Alciatore exacted a promise on his deathbed that the exact proportions be kept a secret forever.