Homemade Sausage Making

Just minutes from our house we have places where you can gather oysters. In fact there is one place where at low tide you can pick a pail full in a few minutes. Yesterday was a glorious sunny day so we hit the beach and got a few. Prepared Oysters Rockefeller for dinner last night and with some french bread and a fume blanc, it was sheer heaven. Today I smoked the rest.

Oysters Rockefeller


Fresh large shucked oysters, white wine, garlic, rosemary, fennel


Poach oysters in the wine and herbs for a few minutes


Smoked for a couple of hours then tossed in olive oil


Time to dig in!

Very Nice Redzed!

The only thing outside my house right now is snow and lots of it.

Mike

I'm envious. I'm a long way from walking distance to the nearest oyster bed, but a few of my friends and I usually get a case or two from Appalachicola, Florida during peak season (mid-winter for the Gulf Coast). We eat most of them raw, maybe throwing one on the grill if it's being particularly obstinate about opening up. We do, however, have a few left over occasionally. I would love to try smoking them. Can you tell us a little more (time, temp, and any other tips) about your smoking technique?

After poaching in wine with a bit of garlic, fennel and rosemary, I simply drain them and lay them on frog mats and on racks in the smoker, placing them as high as possible from any heat source. I like to smoke them with apple but this last batch I used hickory and cherry and they were fine. I smoke them in the 130 to 140 range for a couple of hours, taking care not to dry out the smaller ones. For smoking you need the really big ones, lot bigger than the ones you eat raw. They shrink big time. After smoking, when still warm, I douse them with some nice olive oil. Oysters don't preserve well, whether they are raw or cooked. You have to eat them fresh, otherwise they have a strong off-flavour. I think that many people get turned off oysters for life because they tried one that was sitting around for a while.

I occasionally eat the odd one raw, but if I do so, I prefer the ones that spend all their time in the ocean. The ones we gather are out of water during low tides and we don't eat them in the summer either. This batch, however, was superb and I'll go and get more in a few days.

Red,
What an absolute feast!!!!!!!!!!! Do you eat them straight from the shell as well with some lemon juice?
Regards,
Jan.

crustyo44 wrote:Red,
What an absolute feast!!!!!!!!!!! Do you eat them straight from the shell as well with some lemon juice?
Regards,
Jan.

Of course! But only if there is a bottle of Wódka Luksusowa within reach! But Oysters Rockefeller are my absolute favorite.

You're a lucky man Red. never understood anyone that didn't like oysters. We just spent a week in New Orleans and I gorged myself on raw oysters daily.

I would have them every weekend if I was able to go out and pick 'em.

Oh MAN! You've got yourself something there Redzed. I once had oysters up in BC. I was at a base camp on a backpacking trip on Jervis inlet. The sea bed there was simply carpeted with oysters. Went rowing on Princess Louisa inlet. Same thing. Nothing but oysters. Nobody liked them but me - but what a feast!

They are 16 dollars per pint here in Maryland. Much too valuable to eat.

ssorllih wrote:They are 16 dollars per pint here in Maryland. Much too valuable to eat.

Well Ross, if they weren't so darned perishable I'd ship you a bunch!

And as El Ducko would probably say "the oyster is my world!"

They over fished them in the Chesapeake Bay.