Taishan Oyster Rice 台山蚝饭

Taishan Oyster Rice (台山蚝饭) is rice cooked with chopped fresh oysters and prawns, one of the everyday ways of cooking oysters in Taishan (台山) in Jiangmen (江门), Guangdong. China Qiaowang (中国侨网), the China News Service site for overseas Chinese readers, lists it among the many oyster dishes eaten in Taishan's seaside towns, where the oyster season peaks around the winter solstice.

How it is made

Cleaned oysters are cut into small pieces and mixed with shelled, diced sea prawns, then briefly stir-fried with minced garlic, salt and light soy sauce and set aside. When the cooking rice has absorbed its water, the oyster and prawn mixture is spread evenly over the top, so the rice soaks up their juices as it finishes cooking. Once the rice is done, chopped spring onion and coriander are scattered on and stirred through before serving.

Ingredients

Taishan oysters come mainly from Taishan's coastal towns of Haiyan (海宴), Wencun (汶村), Shenjing (深井) and Beidou (北陡), on Zhenhai Bay (镇海湾) in the south-west of the city, where fresh and salt water mix and plankton is plentiful. Most are raised hanging in deep water. China Qiaowang describes them as milky-white, plump and free of grit. The Jiangmen culture and tourism bureau adds that genuine Taishan oysters grow where the water is about 60 percent sea water and 40 percent fresh, are round and full with a slight yellow tint, and are known to oyster lovers for five qualities: big, fat, white, tender and crisp. It gives November to April as the best season for eating them.