Saturday, December 11, 2004

Deep-Fried Oysters - Kakifurai -


Kakifurai (Deep-Fried Oysters)

This is my favorite winter dish. It doesn’t warm me up like nabe or stew, but oyster season is winter, right? So I call it "winter dish."

My first encounter with deep-fried oysters was probably school lunch at our elementary school, IIRC. I’m not sure if they were furai (coated with breadcrumbs and deep-fried) or tempra (batter-fried) , but anyway, I hated those miserably small, poorly seasoned oysters with no lemon squeeze or tartar sauce. And they were COLD. Y-u-c-k!! I thought I would never be able to eat oysters in the future. (That was along time ago, though. These days kids have incredibly improved school lunch at elementary schools.)

Now I don’t remember when and how I changed my mind. Somehow, somewhere, I ate wonderful warm kakifurai with a squeeze of fresh lemon and tartar sauce. It completely changed my idea of what oysters taste like, and since then kakifurai has been one of my favorites.

BTW, I’ve never tried raw oysters in Japan yet (because good ones are very expensive!!) but I had raw oysters with grated horseradish many times in Miss. Raw oysters and corona beer with a wedge of lime!! What a combination! But I miss that so much now....


Posted by obachan at 12/11/2004 08:06:00 PM

Labels:

10 comments:

JMom said...

Oysters and beer, can't beat that! So perfect on cold nights.

Who would have thought oysters would be so expensive in Japan? I didn't know that. You can go on bars here, on Friday nights, and get them $0.25 each.

12/12/2004 3:38 PM
Fish Fish said...

Wei Obachan, my sis loves raw osyter. She says oyster taste best in raw. I'm not sure cause I never had one. :P I never had a kakifurai too. But if let me choose, I'll go for the furai.

12/12/2004 4:52 PM
obachan said...

> Jonny --- Sure! ... only if you’d do the end-of-year major cleaning of my apartment for me ;)

> JMom --- Well, good oysters to be eaten raw are expensive here. And I’m hesitant to eat less expensive (maybe less fresh?) oysters raw here because I heard the shellfish poisoning is reallly terrible in case of oysters…

> fish fish --- Oh your sister went to Hiroshima and ate some oysters there, right? Too bad she didn’t have a chance to eat them raw. I heard that in Hiroshima they have the best oysters in Japan.

12/12/2004 5:40 PM
obachan said...

Hi grilled aubergine,

Welcome to my site! Yep, they were so good. The photo shows onoly 5 oysters but actually there were 7 of them. I ate them all at one time. ;P

12/14/2004 10:43 PM
Unknown said...

i've been coming back to see these...obachan, i'll wash the pots and pans AND the dishes, for a bite???yummm.

12/15/2004 7:34 AM
obachan said...

Hi drstel,

How could I turn down such a nice offer! :D

12/15/2004 5:13 PM
Ms One Boobie said...

Hey.. Obachan.. i prefer my oysters raw too.. with a dash of tabasco sauce and lemon juice.. yummy..:) My mouth is watering now.. arrrghhhhhhhh... :(

12/17/2004 12:54 PM
obachan said...

Tabasco sauce! Hmmmm, never thought about it but must be a good idea.

12/17/2004 4:13 PM
Annie said...

Oh, yes, Obachan - tabasco on fresh raw oysters is awesome. I bought some oysters to fry a few weeks ago and could not get the breading to stick at all. Yours look so perfect and I'm so jealous!

12/21/2004 6:01 AM
obachan said...

Hi Annie,
Welcome to my site :D OK, I’m convinced about the Tabasco sauce on raw oyster ;)
Have you tried raw bread crumbs for making kakifurai? That’s what I used this time and I thought they stuck somewhat better.
Here’s some tips I found on Japanese sites.
-　Take off excess moisture from raw oysters with paper towel before you salt& papper and coat them with flour, beaten egg and breadcrumbs.
-　Or you could make batter (with flour, egg and a little salad oil), dip oysters in the batter and coat with breadcrumbs.
-　Dipping raw oysters quickly in hot water before drying and breading prevents their shrinking.

Hope this helps.

12/21/2004 10:29 AM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)