Seafood Day 2 At Almost Heaven South - Oysters Rockefeller

The plan for this meal was a pint (I was told about 12 oysters by the sales guy) of shucked select oysters made into Oysters Rockefeller and a second pint beer battered and deep fried. I’d saved the shells from the last meal to use for the Rockefellers. I laid out the dozen best shells and opened the pint of oysters – they were huge and no way would they fit into the shells I had, so I cut some in half and ended up with 18.

I used a recipe from Cooks.com that seemed to fit what I wanted to make. Following is what I actually did, which is basically a half recipe and it was more than enough.

18 oysters in shell
1/2 c. finely chopped parsley (or equivalent dried parsley)
10 oz bag of fresh spinach
1/2 c. green onion tops
1/2 c. melted butter
5 drops Tabasco sauce
1/8 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/8 tsp. garlic powder
1/8 c. Parmesan cheese
1/3 c. Panko bread crumbs
2 tbsp Bacon bits

My directions are very different from the original recipe and this is what I did. Heat olive oil as needed to a 12” skillet, add parsley, onions, and spinach and sauté until spinach is wilted. Let cool, remove from pan and chop spinach to desired size.

Melt butter in a medium bowl and stir in Tabasco, S&P, garlic powder, Parmesan, Panko, and bacon bits (I’ll use real bacon next time). Then mix in spinach mixture and bread crumbs and split the mixture among the oysters based upon size.

The last oyster meal, Bev said they were not smoky enough, so I tossed a chunk of hickory into the fire for these - I could have used other woods, but hey, this is the South, home of hickory smoked BBQ. It generated plenty of smoke.

I cooked them for 7 minutes, did a little re-arranging and cooked for 2 more minutes. They were cooked just right and the only adjustment was adding a couple more drops of Tabasco to each oyster. Here’s my plate.

There is no doubt that the fresh shucked oysters from the previous meal had more flavor than these already shucked ones from the container and I’ll use them for the Rockefeller next time – I believe it’s the oyster liquor in the fresh ones that makes the big difference in flavor.

For the second meal in a row, the grilled oysters filled us up and even though we had the batter made for the fried oysters, we had to pass on them.

Seafood has been a big challenge for me and I’m now up to 8 seafood/fish dishes I would be willing to serve to company:

Cajun grilled shrimp
Seafood/fish scampi
Char-grilled oysters
Blackened fish
Beer battered crappie
Pan-seared catfish with brown butter on black olive toast
Oysters Rockefeller
Smoked salmon
Crab cakes ala Cathy

I’m loving our seafood-a-thon and hope The Shrimp Dock does the half price thing again.

Thanks for stopping by.

Larry