Teochew Oyster Omelette

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1. 1Step 1: Wash your oysters. Put your oysters in a bowl with water and a few teaspoons of salt and cornstarch. Massage them real good (don't have too heavy of a hand, oysters can break), pick out any remaining shells, and set it aside for a few minutes. The cornstarch is going to latch onto any remaining mud or sediment on the oyster, and bring it down to the bottom of bowl as the cornstarch and the water separate. Remove the oysters, give them a good rinse, and put them in a bowl with new water. Make sure the water is more or less clear at this stage – if it's not (let's say) 95% clear, just keep washing and draining the water until it is.
2. 2Step 2: Transfer the oysters from the water to a strainer. There's actually a technique to this. You want to sort of let the oysters 'dangle' a little bit from your fingers to make sure you're not getting any remaining impurities.
3. 3Step 3: Blanch the oysters. Get a pot of water up to a boil and add in a splash of liaojiu wine – we used roughly a tablespoon. Add in your oysters and give them a quick stir. We don't want to overcook the oysters (nobody likes a rubbery oyster), so as soon as that pot gets back up to a simmer – about 1 minute – take them out and strain them.
4. 4Step 4: Make your batter. The amount of oysters and batter that we're using here is for an 8 inch skillet. Mix your sweet potato starch and water and give it a real good whisk, incorporating it as much as humanly possible. Then add in your green onions and oyster, giving that a nice mix (but being careful not to break the oysters).
5. 5Step 5: Pre-heat your pan, give the batter one final mix, and pour it in. We're using 'hot pot, hot oil' method here, so make sure that pan's piping hot… basically hot enough that you could sear a steak. Add in a bit of oil, I'd say roughly ½ cm deep – we're not shallow frying or anything but you'll want more than a coating. Give that batter one final mix right before you pour it in – sweet potato starch has an annoying tendency to separate and sink, so make sure you don't forget to do this.
6. 6Step 6: Cook on high for about a minute, evening out the batter and oysters in the pan, then lower the heat. First thing's first, arrange your oysters to make sure that the oysters are evenly spread around the pan (you don't want some bites being pure oyster and some being none). Then, tilt the pan to make sure the batter's even – you can tell a place needs batter if there's a visible bubbling of oil. Turn your heat to medium low.
7. 7Step 7: Pour a whisked egg over the pancake, then cut into quarters. Crack an egg and give it a good whisk. Pour the egg over the pancake, trying to get it as even as possible. Tilt the pan to spread the egg to any areas you didn't quite get. Then, cut the omelette into quarters with your spatula, which will help it cook evenly and make it easier to flip.
8. 8Step 8: Cook for about one more minute, then flip. You'll know you're ready to flip once the batter is a bit translucent and the egg is no longer overly runny. You're gonna flip each quarter, but this ain't like a Western omelette where if you screw up the flip everything's ruined. This is going to be eaten with chopsticks anyhow, so a messed up piece isn't the end of the world.
9. 9Step 9: Drizzle some more oil in the cracks of the flipped omelette, then up the heat to medium high and cook for two minutes. Adding some more oil between the cracks is going to help achieve a nice golden brown color. Let it cook for a couple minutes on this side – this is gonna be our 'show' side.
10. 10Step 10: Flip it back over, turn off the heat, and season. Flip the omelette back over to get that nice golden show side and turn off the heat. Sprinkle some white pepper pretty liberally over the omelette – I'd estimate we used about a teaspoon as you want to make sure every bite has a nice seasoning.
11. 11Step 11: Garnish with cilantro and serve with fish sauce. Again, notice that we didn't add salt here – you're really gonna want that fish sauce for dipping. Fish sauce and this omelette go absolutely perfect together too.