Oyster Omelette 蚵仔煎

Oyster Omelette (蚵仔煎) is a snack of fresh oysters fried with starch and egg, usually eaten with a sour-spicy sauce. Chinese Wikipedia describes it as believed to come from Fujian and known along the south China coast, in Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Zhangzhou (漳州) in southern Fujian makes its own version, set apart by a rice batter that fries up crisper than elsewhere.

How it is made

Across southern Fujian (闽南) the traditional starch is sweet potato starch, and today some cooks use wheat flour; it usually goes into the pan mixed with the oysters from the start. A Minnan Daily (闽南日报) feature on Zhangzhou snacks says the Zhangzhou version differs in using rice batter (米浆) instead, which makes the finished omelette crisper.

Flavour and texture

Fresh from the pan, the Zhangzhou omelette is golden, with a crisp skin and a soft inside. The paper calls it fragrant and tender, oily without being greasy.

How it is eaten

In Zhangzhou it comes with sour pickled radish (萝卜酸) and a sweet-chilli garlic sauce, and is best eaten hot. The paper tells visitors to Zhangzhou not to say the Mandarin 'ke zai jian' but to follow local usage, roughly 'ou-a jian'.

Where it comes from

One legend in the Wikipedia article ties the dish to sweet potatoes, which Chen Zhenlong (陈振龙) is said to have brought secretly from Manila to Fujian in the late 16th century. In the story, after a Fujian drought in 1594, people made the omelette from the easily grown sweet potato and the plentiful local oysters as a staple food. By the mid-17th century it was widespread along the south China coast and had been taken to Southeast Asia.