Oysters Rockefeller In The Oven

Bev has been craving our normal crappie in lemon/butter/caper sauce and I have been wanting to try our frozen oysters so we opted for both in the same meal.  We really enjoy Oysters Rockefeller (OR) and have posted about them a few times but this was a first for us as we have always cooked them in the half shell on the grill.  During our RV trip to Florida in Dec/Jan we were shocked to discover that very few oysters were being harvested from Apalachicola Bay but we could buy a few. 

Since we wanted to take them home, we bought some pre-shucked ones and froze them with the understanding that they didn’t work well raw but were just as good as fresh-shucked when cooked.

Obviously they could easily be thawed, breaded, and fried but making OR without shells presented a challenge so I went in search of a replacement and found these oven safe oyster dishes at Amazon. 

For this meal, I had 23 oysters so I doubled the recipe below.

12 fresh oysters on the half shell

1 stick butter, melted

½ C. or so of sautéed spinach

2 pieces of bacon, diced and fried crisp

Dash Sriracha, more to taste

1½ T. fresh chopped parsley

2 t. minced garlic

1/8 C. chopped chives (or green onions)

¼ C. bread plain crumbs, use Panko for extra crispy

1/8 C. grated Parmesan cheese

1. Preheat oven to 450F.

2. Mix together ingredients 2 thru 8 in a small bowl and ingredients 9 & 10 in another small bowl (I just added 9&10 separately without mixing).

3. Add one oyster to each plate section and top the oysters with the butter mixture then the bread crumbs and Parmesan.

Bake 8-10 minutes until topping is bubbling and browned on top – use broiler for a couple of minutes if needed.

We started eating our salad with Bev’s homemade rolls while the oysters cooked and served them while there was still plenty of bread.  After eating the oysters, the highlight of the meal was dunking the warm bread unto the topping left on the oyster plates – since I didn’t lose any of the butter as I do with char-grilled, I will cut it in half if I make these again.

I thought the oysters turned out good and the plates worked well in the oven but we all thought fresh shucked had a little more flavor and we prefer them cooked on the grill (char-grilled). They were still worth making and an acceptable substitute - the next experiment will be pan or deep frying the frozen oysters.

We decided to wait awhile before cooking the crappie and when I asked if everyone was ready, the answer was that after the big salad, oysters, and bread we were all too full.  So we visited a while longer and had a slice of Carol’s delicious banana cream pie to finish off the meal.  Everyone but Carol came back the next night for the fish.

So the two take-away's from this post - the dishes worked fine as did the frozen oysters.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

2/25/18 Meal Date