One of the things I picked up over the weekend at Mandeville Seafood was oysters, which I have been looking for at least a few months. We have wanted to do our own chargrilled oysters on The Big Green Egg, which is seeing a lot of use in these times.
We have the famous ceramic oyster shells from Loftin Oysters that were still in the beautiful packaging. These
Come in a burlap sack which is stuffed to capacity with stiff straw packaging. Inside, the shells are tightly packed and carefully separated.
They are beautiful shells that resemble the real thing, and are hand painted so pretty you almost don’t want to use them.
But we did. I put two oysters in each shell, including a little oyster juice. The oysters were so large two per shell was too many. And I shouldn’t have included juice, because the water seeps out of them in cooking. I had a butter sauce of parsley, pepper, and maybe too chunky garlic.
This I ladled on each oyster shell, and covered it all with a mound of grated parmesan cheese.
All of these shells went onto the grill. We were surprised at how long this process took, though maybe it’s because our flames weren’t shooting to the sky like the ones at Drago’s. The water bubbled around the edges as the cheese melted and really disappeared. The large pieces of garlic popped out as the oysters shrunk in cooking. There was now a scary crust of brown stuck to the oyster, and I couldn’t even tell what it was. It had to be the cheese because that was nowhere to be seen. And I thought I took care of this to make the layer of cheese thick like at Drago’s.
It’s a good thing Tom will eat oysters in any form, bec ause he devoured these. The sauce we were hoping for was not there, and the oysters were too big and not cooked enough for me.
ML and I were terrified at the look of the shells, thinking we’d never get them clean again. They soaked in the sink under water and we were shocked at how quickly it all melted away. Only hours later they were perfectly clean again.
Next time we do this I will use only one oyster, no water, smaller garlic, and better parmesan cheese. Without 6 foot flames we may get better results broiling them.
Chargrilling oysters is best right in their natural shell. The Loftin Oyster shells are a pretty good second.
