Whats on tonights Menu

Thanks to the inspiration and advice of Mr. Roccus, easy peasy with a screwdriver and my clam knife!! The local long ireland beer helped just as much too??
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Roccus-
Can you show us a picture of a whole unopened oyster showing the prime point of entry with the knife pointed in???
Same spot in the screwdriver video??
Yup, unlike opening clams* & scallops where you target the muscle first, with oysters you target the hinge. *-with some really reluctant clams, I go in through the hinge.

Baked Oysters PhD:

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Cod Piccata over Bow Tie & Baked Cauliflower:

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try this - I haven't tried it yet so I can't comment on it - I steam my oysters in white wine, cilantro, lemon & garlic

Fill a large bowl with cold water and salt liberally, then add the oysters and soak for 10 minutes. ... This will liven them up and loosen the shells — making them easier to pop open

Put any shell fish in the freezer for a few mins makes them real easy to open
 
AHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Best piker oyster knife is a pre-poptop, old fashioned triangular hole beer can opener, and possibly a flat head screw driver, but my favorite weapon is an East Coast Oyster knife. Not a fan of West Coast knives as they are sharp, and can cut. See East Coast knife below.

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See that bent tip? You lay the oyster flat with it's "cup side" down, and flat side up. You take the knife tip up, or the beer can opener tip up, and insert the tip into the hinge at the back of the oyster. While pushing the tip of the knife into the back of the oyster, you push down on the knife to pop the hinge open. Once that's done, slide the knife around to cut the single muscle in the middle of the beastie, toward the front.

Other nice things to have are a special oyster shucking glove (Kevlar) so those sharp shells don't cut up your hand and/or a oyster holder to lodge them in while opening. That's a great item, but doesn't work on the Mongo Pemaquid Perfectos I just shucked for tonight's first course of Oysters PhD. These things were ginormous, 9 of them filled a 12 x 18 baking pan!!
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The clams were my lunch snack.

Here's a video on how to use a screwdriver, and it shows you the anatomy of the hinge, which is critical...


I got them open ??
 
Maybe I'll have to try them cooked.
Don't do that!! If you're intimidated by opening, next time you buy them ask the person selling to show you how to open. Believe it or not, I've actually had a knife wear out on me, that critical bent tip on my Dexter broke off from metal fatigue a couple of years ago. Needless to say it was immediately replaced...

IMO, a cold-water American Eastern Oyster, Crassostrea virginica, is best enjoyed raw. If I do come across some dinner plate sized ones, then I cook. Other than that, they belong front and center on the raw bar.

Cold water is key and oysters from warmer waters are best cooked, because they don't old a candle to cold water one. When oysters are in warmer water, their metabolism switches into reproductive mode, and the enlarged gonads are a mushy, tasteless mass. In cold water, those organs shrink and the oyster is in plump deliciousness.

Every wonder why just about every NOLA restaurant has multiple versions of fried oysters on the menu? It's because they taste like crap raw and need to be breaded and drowned in remoulade sauce!! When on LI, I wouldn't bother collecting oysters for the raw bar until mid-December, and kept going through early March. The other "R" months were fine for cooking, but not for half shell goodness. Once south of Fire Island on the East Coast, not matter what month it is, the best use of oysters is cooked.
 

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