I was able to have a lot of fun with this dish; it forced me to create something that was solely based on what was hanging around, I had a few shucked oysters on hand. In fact I had way more than I needed. It was one of those few instances where I became over zealous with purchasing and my old friend Jason’s voice popped in to my head saying “Better to have and not need, than to need and not have!” So needing a means of using them up before having to throw them in the bin., I did a little research on the Creole classic Oyster Boudain and decided to tweak it a bit to try to elevate it to the next level

I will admit that we deviated a bit from the traditional preparation. In stead of using tasso, I substituted house smoke bacon. Other than that I used a very traditional recipe and followed it letter for letter. I made a batter using some blue corn flower from Anson Mills, but the tricky part was molding it to that shape that I wanted. So I decided to use flexi molds and pour the boudain mixture in. Once the mixture was in I placed it in the freezer to allow them to set. Once they were set I started to coat them with the batter and par- fried them to set up a corn meal crust on the outside.

I have to admit that inspiration for this came from a case of Vienna Beef Corn Dogs that I picked up at Restaurant Depot for staff meal one day. For those of use who have worked in industrial kitchens, we all know that one of the perks is having access to deep fat fryer. Corn dogs are particularly good fresh out of the fryer, even the institutional ones. The Boudain to me was like a high end corn dog, crispy blue corn batter with a silky molten aromatic filling. The poached oysters, roasted salsify and bacon cream were admittedly put in for an overkill effect. This was some serious eating, and I will be sure to resurrect this dish one day!