Recipe Crispy Fried Oyster Omelette with Spicy Sweet Sour Chili Sauce. Oyster omelette is a popular Chinese cuisine dish in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and many parts of Asia for its savory taste. There are several variations of the oyster omelette; differ from the ingredients, the method of making and also the condiments to served compare to the originally Taiwanese version. Oyster Omelette is often sold in night markets and considered as a populer street food.
Recipe Crispy Fried Oyster Omelette with Spicy Sweet Sour Chili Sauce. Oyster omelette is a popular Chinese cuisine dish in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and many parts of Asia for its savory taste. There are several variations of the oyster omelette; differ from the ingredients, the method of making and also the condiments to served compare to the originally Taiwanese version. Oyster Omelette is often sold in night markets and considered as a populer street food.
Dadar tiram or sometimes called tiram goreng telur is also well know dish in Chinese-Indonesian or Tionghoa descent people. Dadar tiram is a signature dish of Singkawang (West Borneo). The oyster the used is the local ones with smaller size but packed with flavours and more plump compare to the common oyster. It’s fry with a little ammount of oil so the outside of the omelette is charred and crisp while the inside remain moist. The other Indonesian oyster omelette is called ote-ote porong from Sidoarjo (West Java). Ote-ote porong it’s more like a pancake batter stuffed with fresh tiny oyster, pork or chicken and sliced kelp seaweed.
The sauce for serving oyster omelette is different from may many region, but mostly ketchup or chili sauce based. The sauce consistency is thick and gooey with a balance of citrusy, spicy, nutty, tangy, sweet and savoury. The oyster omelette sauce sometimes contain some peanut butter to give it a litte nutty aftertaste without overpowering the sauce. The Japanese version of oyster omelette or kaki tamago sauce also comtain some red miso paste, while the Korean give their signature gochujang on the sauce, so pretty much the sauce is adjustable as long as it comforts your licking preference.
Fresh oyster is kinda hard to found here in Indonesia, mostly fresh oyster sold in Asian-Chinese fresh market or gourmet supermarket. The best quality live French or Dutch oyster for sure make a delicious oyster omelette, but i prefer to eat the 6 USD worth each live oyster raw, so i prefer the local species for cooked oyster recipe. I only known Petak Sembilan fresh market (Jakarta) and Muara Angke fish market as the place where you can purchased already shucked oyster. It cost you about IDR 35.oo-50.000 (3.5-5 USD) for a package. The fresh oyster i use on this recipe i got from Hero Supermarket Kemang Villa (Jakarta), the same place where i purchased yabby for making Yabby and Saffron Risotto.
There are three major part of oyster omelette; the starch batter, the eggs and the oyster. Delicious oyster omelette need the best ingredients of those three, balancing them is also quite challenging. I personally like my oyster omelette dry, non-greasy, crisp on the outside and moist in the inside. The taste is not to starchy, while the egg and the oyster can blend together and you still noticed the oyster there. This is the glory of homemade oyster omelette, you can adjust it according to your taste buds because it’s versatile.
This is my favourite texture of oyster omelette; The first list is the dryness, greasy and oily will turn my appetite off. The starch batter and egg ratio must be balanced, since this is omelette so the egg is the highlight, so it’s BIG NO to the street food stall oyster omelette with too much starch batter. The starch batter give a nice plump and bouchy texture to the dish, so in the other hand without any starch batter it won’t be oyster omelette. As usual, it’s too obvious that i add some chillies to kicked up the omelette a little bit, deseeded if you want it milder or even omit it if you had a faint stomach.
The spicy sweet and sous chili sauce for the oyster omelette is pretty much a fusion of all version of it as possible. I add ketchup and lime juice for tanginess, chili sauce and gochujang for some spiciness. I also add some miso paste for savouriness, then completed it with nutty and peanut butter. No starch added into the sauce since the ketchup and the chili sauce itself already thick
Live and freshly shuck oyster for making oyster omelette is preferred, but you can use the packed fresh already shucked oyster. Oysters in the shell must be sold live, they should feel heavy and full of water. Live ones will be tightly clamped shut, or will clamp shut when tapped. Dead oysters will have loose shells and must be discarded along with those which have broken shells. If you choose the package of shucked oyster, choose the plump and have a natural creamy color with clear liquid. The fresh shucked oyster liquid color might be slighy brown or yellowish, but never opaque, creamy or cloudy what so ever. Never discard the juice of fresh shucked oyster, you can mix it with the starch to replace the water for giving extra oyster flavour. Once you pop out the shucked oyster from the package, it shouldn’t had any sour or unpleasant odor.
How to make oyster omelette without made it sticking to your pan isquite tricky. Here’s the dilemmas, if you using non sticky pan, the outside layer of the oyster omelette won’t be crispy and it will be ended out into a soggy and rubber chewy hard mess unless it’s burned out if you try to prolonged the cooking process, but in the other hand if you using regular pan, the batter is possibly sticking if the ammount of oil is not sufficient. Eversince adding more oil make your omelette greasy, oily and unappetizing so this is not a great sollution either, but don’t worry i will share you the tricks to make your oyster omelette crispy, non greasy and dry without sticking it to the pan.
To prevent the oyster omelette sticking to the bottom of the wok pan, use preheated wokpan and smoking hot oil. A little bit of oil is more than enough to seal the starch batter of oyster omelette once it properly heated until very-very hot. Pour about half cup of oil into the pan and heat it until smoking hot and swirl it until the oil coating the wokpan. Pour out the oil and keep about one tablespoon of it then add the oyster, wait maillard reaction or caramelization magic happen to brown the oyster then you flip it over. Spread the oyster evenly in the wokpan to assamble a round omelette before you add the starch batter.
The starch batter then poured in a circular swirl movement from the outside to the center, you’ll amazed how quick the starch batter will transform into translucent.. Wait until the half of the batter set and translucent before you adding the eggs.
Once your oyster omelette starch batter turn translucent, put three eggs, break the yolk and spread it evenly, but it’s up to you, you can priorly beaten the eggs if you like but i personally my omelette this way. If you want to use some green leaf veggies, you can add it on this phase.
Some thinly sliced scallions and chilles added into the oyster omelette before the egg set and then you should put the lid on to fasten the cooking process and wait until all the egg set. You can flip it over with two spatula if you like all surface of your omelette browned, charred and crispy.
Now the oyster omelette is ready, drizzle the spicy sauce ove it and you can enjoy your crispy, non-greasy charred, moist fried oyster omelette.