Chesapeake Bay Oysters with Green Mignonette Sauce

It is common to serve a mignonette sauce with raw oysters.  It is a sauce typically made with minced shallots, vinegar and and freshly cracked black pepper. Personally, I think a mignonette sauce is boring.  I almost never use it when I order raw oysters at a restaurant; and, at home, I usually don't bother making it.  

Occasionally, I look for a way to take a boring mignonette sauce and make it into something that I would actually want to grace a raw oyster that is sitting in its shell.  On rare occasions, I try to come up with my own mignonette sauce.  In the end, I more often than not just use a little Tabasco Sauce or grated horseradish with my oysters.  No sauces.

A while back, I came across a recipe for a green mignonette sauce.  The recipe actually looked interesting and, if I dare say so, it looked tasty.  While shallots are used in the recipe, rice wine vinegar and mirin are used as substitutes for vinegar.   The addition of jalapeno and fresh parsley give the mignonette sauce a little character and kick.  Blended together, with a little lemon juice, the result is a sauce that was worth putting on an oyster. 

CHESAPEAKE BAY OYSTERS WITH GREEN MIGNONETTE SAUCE
Recipe adapted from from Veryvera
Serves 2-3

Ingredients:

1 dozen Chesapeake Bay oysters, rinsed and shucked

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar

1/4 cup mirin

1 tablespoon minced jalapeno

1 tablespoon chopped shallots

1/4 cup flat leaf parsley, chopped

Juice from 1 lemon

Directions:

1.  Prepare the sauce.  Blend all of the ingredients in a blender.  Pour into ramekins to serve with the oysters.  

2.  Finish the dish.  Provide each guest with a ramekin of the sauce.  Spoon a little of the sauce over each oyster.

ENJOY!