I’ve made charbroiled oysters, using this recipe or one similar to it.
**Drago’s Charbroiled Oysters
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients:**
8 ounces (2 sticks) softened butter
2 tablespoons finely chopped garlic
1 teaspoon black pepper
Pinch dried oregano
1 1/2 dozen large, freshly shucked oysters on the half shell
1/4 cup grated Parmesan and Romano cheeses, mixed
2 teaspoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
Preparation:
Note: Tommy Cvitanovich of Drago’s Seafood Restaurant says, “This is the perfect dish for those who want to enjoy oysters in their unadorned form, but can’t or won’t eat them raw. Once you start eating these charbroiled ones, you won’t be able to stop. Don’t attempt this without freshly shucked oysters and an outdoor grill.”
Heat a gas or charcoal grill. In a medium bowl, mix butter with garlic, pepper, and oregano.
Place oysters on the half shell right over the hottest part. Spoon enough of the seasoned butter over the oysters so that some of it will overflow into the fire and flame up a bit.
The oysters are ready when they puff up and get curly on the sides, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle the grated Parmesan and Romano and the parsley on top. Serve on the shells immediately with hot French bread.
I’m planning to make some this weekend, if I can find suitable oysters. Pike Place Fish Market has some, and they’ll pack them for the trip home. The plan is to make the charbroiled oysters and some steak, and to have raw oysters too. The oyster fishery is a mite tentative right now because of bacteria levels, so the raw ones might be risky.
I do oysters on the grill all the time. It’s a fantastic method. I never thought of opening them first. I usually just set them on the grill and when they start to open I pull off the top shell and give 'em a bit of compound butter. I may have to try opening them first.
From the same little slice of oyster heaven, this is my favorite way to have them. The Desire Oyster Bar in the Royal Sonesta Hotel is one place I never skip when I get to town.
INGREDIENTS:
6 each Fresh P&J Oysters, shucked on the half shell
4 oz. Unsalted butter
1 T. Garlic, pealed and chopped
½ tsp. Kosher Salt
2 T. Parmesan, grated
1 tsp. Creole seasoning blend
1 T. Parsley, Chopped
½ tsp. Green onions, sliced
½ each Lemon, Sliced and Roasted
½ c. Rock Salt
INSTRUCTIONS:
Allow butter to soften at room temperature for 1 hour. Preheat Broiler on high
for 20 minutes.
In a mixing bowl combine butter, garlic, salt, Parmesan, parsley and ½
teaspoon of the seasoning blend. Fill a heat resistant bowl with rock salt and
place oysters in the shell on the salt. Spoon 1 T. of the butter mixture onto each
oyster. Sprinkle the top of each oyster with the remaining seasoning blend.
Place bowl and lemon slices in broiler on the top shelf for 6-8 minutes until
nicely browned.
To serve, sprinkle with green onions and place roasted lemons in thecenter of
the bowl
If you’re close enough to be considering shopping at Pike Place, may I suggest getting the oysters from Chuckanut Drive area and Taylor Farm? Not only is it a beautiful scenic drive, but the oyster farming is done right there, and you’ll pay half what you will at Pike Place. Do some raw oysters for a picnic lunch while you’re there, and take the rest home in a cooler full of ice for the grill.
When they make them at Drago’s they flame up more than just a bit. The flames can be several inches over the tops of the oysters. If you’re ever in New Orleans it can be fun to sit at the bar at Drago’s and watch them cook. It’s quite a show.
We went to Acme last trip. We’ll have to check out Drago’s next time.
Incidentally, the same butter mixture used in the oysters is great on skewered prawns. Hey, as long as you’re mixing it up, you may as well make a little extra!
Taylor’s is ‘kind of’ on the way home – in the sense that I pass its latitude. I could get off the 5 and take Chuckanut, but not today. We want to have the oysters tomorrow, and I know that PPFM has them. I don’t know if Taylor’s does. (You really need very large oysters for grilling, IMO. Everyone I’ve called so far, aside from PPFM, has ‘extra small’.) So I’ll get them from PPFM today, and then do a reconnaissance of Taylor’s at a later date.
I eat them like this all the time. My only advice is to use larger oysters for this recipe, as the smaller ones will overcook and dry out much more quickly.\
ETA: I missed that in your last post. Sorry about that.
Yeah, last time I was able to get live oysters from one of the local supermarkets that had shells from six to nine inches long. The bigger, the better for grilling, I say.
As for ‘other oysters’ mentioned in the title, I’ll probably get smaller ones for eating raw. I’ll see what they have. We always get a variety (when a variety is offered) when we dine out. Different oysters taste different. I can never remember which ones I like best. But hey, they’re oysters! They’re all good.
I thought I might bread and deep fry some oysters, too. But three kinds of oysters, two cooked richly, plus steak and probably a potato sounds like over-doing it just a little. Maybe next week I’ll make some deep-fried oysters with Tabasco sauce – or better yet, oyster po’ boys. (Or shrimp-and-oyster po’ boys.)
I prefer smaller oysters for just about every application. Maybe not “extra small” but I wouldn’t want the shells over about five inches. It’s more a texture thing than anything else.
Small oysters may take a little more attention when grilling, but I’ve had success using ones with shells that averaged 3-4 inches.
Don’t forget that oysters can live in your refrigerator for quite some time. Keep them in a drawer, with a moist towel over the top and you can easily come back to them two or three days later. I’ve heard that you shouldn’t do this if you plan to eat them raw, but my favorite dishes use them cooked anyway.
When I was in New Orleans in June I attended the Oyster Festival and had the char-broiled oysters from Drago’s. Oh My God they were one of the tastiest things I’ve ever had! It was awesome watching them cook them too!
Well, if you can’t or won’t eat them raw (the way God intended), that sounds pretty good. Usually, we’re eating a half-bushel or more at a time, so we just take the fishcooker, turn a short basket upside down (to create a platform), put in some water with a ton of Old Bay or Zatarin’s and steam them. The nice thing is that you can do about 40 or so at a time. Yummy.
The (sadly now closed) Ocean Club in Ocean City, Md used to serve Oysters Annapolis which was a large shucked oyster (in its half shell) with a heaping dollop of jumbo lump crabmeat in a cheesy bechamel, and then broiled. Man they were so good.
I was successful in my quest to find large oysters. While the first fishmonger I went to at Pike Place Market had little to offer because of current conditions, Pike Place Fish Market had plenty. I picked up a dozen very large ones ($13.99/doz.) for grilling, and a dozen Kumamoto oysters ($19.99/doz.) for eating raw.
The large ones went into an ice chest with the gel packs PPFM packed them with, and I dumped a bunch of ice ‘cubes’ on top. The plan was to charbroil those today/tonight and have steak and oysters for dinner, with the Kumamotos serving as appetisers.
The Kumamotos didn’t make it to today. We stood at the counter and polished them off right away. I only jabbed my thumb with the shucking knife once, so there was not much blood. I’ll try to be more careful with the shucking knife tonight.
