Home-smoked oysters with Thai chilli dipping sauce

SERVES 1, 2 OR 3, DEPENDING WHETHER YOU WANT TO SHARE THEM OR NOT!

The simple dipping sauce with the oysters is all about the balance between sweet (palm sugar), salty (fish sauce), sour (lime juice) and heat (chilli). Everyone’s tastebuds are different, so you may need to adjust the amounts slightly. The palm sugar adds a lovely delicate, full sweetness, but if you can’t find it use caster (superfine) sugar. You can use any barbecue here, but it needs a hood or you won’t be able to smoke anything in it. You’ll also need a smoke box, which you can get at a barbecue shop, plus woodchips (I used a mix of hickory and Jack Daniel’s-flavoured chips) and a cake rack.

12 large oysters, fresh from the sea (while you’re at it you may as well do two or three dozen!)

12 table crackers, to serve

CHILLI SAUCE

1½ teaspoons grated palm sugar (jaggery)

juice of 1 lime

1 bird’s eye chilli, finely chopped

1½ teaspoons fish sauce

Put all the chilli sauce ingredients in a small bowl and give them a good stir. (I gently heat my sauce on the barbecue to make sure the palm sugar is melted and well integrated – you don’t need to cook it, just make sure the sugar has dissolved completely.) Cover and set aside.

If using a Weber kettle barbecue you should have lit it 40 minutes ago! They are great to cook on, and especially great to smoke food on, but you need to think ahead in terms of getting them to the right temperature. Light the coals on only one side of the Weber as you don’t need too much heat – say about 120°C (235°F) or so.

Shuck your oysters – you can’t get them any fresher than that. Dunk the oyster meat into a pot of boiling water and let them boil for about 30 seconds to firm the flesh up a little. Scoop the oysters out and place on a clean, dry tea towel (dish towel), then pat completely dry. The oysters must be dry or the smoke will not stick to them.

Put the woodchips in the smoke box and place the box directly on top of the hot coals. Put the barbecue rack in, then place the cake rack on top of the barbecue rack on the other side of the Weber, away from the heat. Place the oysters on the cake rack and pull the barbecue hood down. Let the smoke do its thing for 25–35 minutes, turning the oysters after about 15 minutes. The oysters are done when they are firm to the touch, and not obviously raw or watery in the middle.

Tip the oysters into the bowl of chilli sauce and toss to coat. Serve each oyster on a table cracker.