The Secret To Frying Oysters Perfectly + Recipe

There’s a French restaurant in downtown Poughkeepsie that has the best fried oyster appetizer. The oysters are fried perfectly, nestled over a bell pepper relish and with a dab of garlic aioli over top. Scrumpdelish. It’s the kind of dish that you think about, almost obsessively, until you eat it again. I did muster up the nerve to ask the chef to share the recipe, but natch, he was tight-lipped.

Didn’t share a single detail.

As I didn’t take a single photo of the dish, I can only go from visual memory. So I set out to try and recreate this favored appetizer, starting with frying the oysters. The goal: a light, airy batter with an end result of a perfectly cooked oyster. Not chewy nor rubbery.

I tried everything from a general purpose flour coating, to potato flakes, to even bread crumbs. The oysters either came out too cake-y or just downright awful. And, with all this, I had to come up with the Goldilocks of frying time.

All this lead me to the reasoning that I needed to combine flours, and so I turned to semolina flour. A super fine flour that has now become my secret ingredient to frying delicate foods. On its own proved that the oysters needed a little more umph, but combining equal parts semolina flour and all purpose flour was just right. For the frying time, as oysters are so delicate, a quick in and out of the oil for only 30 seconds is all it took to produce perfect fried oysters.

For the relish, I combined yellow, orange, and red bell pepper for good color, and added cucumber to stay with the relish I remembered. A simple sherry vinaigrette to bring on the party, and that dab of garlic aioli to make it perfection. Served on these custom oyster plates, and I have to say they not only taste exactly how I remember, but they display is equally as pretty.

Here is my recipe for Fried Oysters with Bell Pepper Relish and Garlic Aioli.

A couple side notes first: My favorite way to fry food is in my good ol’ Fry Daddy. It’s tried and true and although a little outdated, always fries perfectly. Second, I had a hard time finding semolina flour at any of our local grocery stores, so here is where I purchased it from.