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Oysters....unshucked on the grill


gulfporter

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I have a medical condition in both hands that makes shucking oysters too painful.   

 

I would like to serve them at an upcoming cookout from my gas grill.  Anyone have experience in grilling unshucked oysters...will they magically open all the way once heated this way?   Approx. how long will they take to open?

 

I would like to add something to them after they open (garlic/herb sauce or ???).....will they oysters open enough to allow for me to drop something onto the bottom shell?  Or are they just going to slightly open and need to be removed from the grill and the top shell taken off by hand?

 

Appreciate any advice; have not worked with oysters, other then those purchased already shucked.

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I found this :

 

http://whatscookingamerica.net/GrilledOysters.htm

 

but recently in the last few days i saw another ref. which I cant locate.

 

it must have been an add-on to a site that was ref here.

 

there is a way to put them on the grill very briefly, making them easier to open but you do have to open them

 

but this brief time does not cook the oyster so its more like regular raw.

 

sorry I cant find it.

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In June every year I cycle camp in France, now ,just in Brittany. for a month

 

Twice a week i call in at an oyster farm and buy a dozen oyster  for my lunch. 4 euros fifty

 

I open them as the ' fermier de la huitres' showed me, and this is the way:

 

holding the oyster in my palm, with the curve across my fingers , you insert the oyster knife. push and move the knife from side to side so as to kill the little fellow.

 

he will relax  his hold on his home (because il est mort. )

 

If you place your lovely oysters curved side down on your grill for a while , he will open, because il est morte.

 

I must ask you , Why would you cook an oyster?

 

put mussels on the Grill by all means !

Edited by naguere (log)

Martial.2,500 Years ago:

If pale beans bubble for you in a red earthenware pot, you can often decline the dinners of sumptuous hosts.

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Yes, oysters open easily when done. The sign that they're done is the shell will gape open a good inch. It's very easy to take off the top shell after that. Usually takes 2 - 3 minutes. Be careful to put them on the grill stably or the oyster liquid will fall out once they're open.

PS: I am a guy.

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In my experience, by the time oysters are open an inch, they're overcooked, and the liquid has mostly evaporated.

 

Put them on the grill rounded shell down and don't flip.

 

I watch them closely, and just when the shells begin to open, pull them off. They are much easier to shuck than raw, but still juicy. Let them go too long, and they get rubbery and dried out. No matter how much they're overcooked, they don't just shuck themselves.

 

I actually like this method better than steaming for lots of oysters because the heating is more even.

 

I like a casual oyster roast. Just serve them in their shells lightly grilled, and let everyone open their own. Get someone to open yours for you. I'd gladly do that for an invite.

 

Have oyster knives, sturdy plates, napkins, cocktail sauce, lemon herb butter, ramekins and crackers available.

 

Just don't go ultra casual like my ex-neighbor did one time and not scrub the oysters before grilling. That was the last time we ate at her house. After that, oyster roasts with her happened at my house.

 

She was a good friend, and used to give us superlative striped bass she caught on Kerr Lake and venison her hunting friends harvested. We were actually boating buddies as well as neighbors, but her idea of hygiene just could't be reconciled with my own.

 

I hope you have as much fun as we've had over the years roasting oysters on the grill.

> ^ . . ^ <

 

 

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I had a hell of a time the last time I tried to grill oysters. I was grilling large Pacific oysters, and most of them just refused to open. Those that opened even a tiny bit, I pried open and they were fine, but the rest didn't open and just dried up on the grill.

-- There are infinite variations on food restrictions. --

Crooked Kitchen - my food blog

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Would I have better luck with either clams or mussels on the grill, as far as opening all the way on the grill?  

 

I'm looking for some sort of hard shell seafood to add to a cookout party, that I can throw on the grill then serve without a lot of intervention on my part, other than having either a dipping sauce or adding a splash of sauce/seasoning to the opened shell.  

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I've been to oyster cookouts done on a grill. Didn't pay close attention at the time, but they were very good.

 

In Spanish "La Plancha" cooking (cooking on a steel plate) it is common to cook clams and mussels directly on a steel plate. Air is a very poor conductor of heat, metal is much better. The heat capacity (thermal mass) of metal is a mere fraction (1/6?) of water, but in direct contact with bivalves metal does a good job of transferring that heat.

 

The moral here is to get the scale right. One is raising the dead, not merely genuflecting. There was a very amusing thread where Thomas Keller took a lot of kidding for proposing in "The Bouchon Bakery" the (old) idea of putting a tray in an oven with 30 lbs of chains and rocks, to generate steam comparable to a commercial deck oven for bread baking. Two spritzes with a plant sprayer isn't the same. (I use 350g ice to buy a few seconds of handling time, for the energy required to bring ice to a boil is much less than that to actually boil the water.)

 

Interestingly, a 1/2" baking steel http://bakingsteel.com/shop/the-big/ is also 30 lbs. A huge mistake to discount this as only "for the kind of pizza I don't make". It makes a fantastic stovetop griddle (they know this and an actual griddle is in the works: http://bakingsteel.com/baking-steel-griddle-update/). This is the best dosa and crepe pan I've ever seen. Heat to 550 F and slap on some sous vide steak, a fraction of a minute per side, for the best way I know to sear at home. It's all in the physics.

 

Baking Steel sells rounds (1/4" in stock, thicker by special order) that better fit some grills like my http://www.komodokamado.com/ ceramic cooker. That would be how I'd do these oysters, after a serious preheat. Any juice trickling off just amalgemates into the smoky BBQ flavor you're building.

Per la strada incontro un passero che disse "Fratello cane, perche sei cosi triste?"

Ripose il cane: "Ho fame e non ho nulla da mangiare."

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