- Charbroiled Oysters à la Dragos
- Salad with capers and piquillo peppers
- Marsee's supposedly french baguette
We have been working to optimize the process for making charbroiled oysters as they are served at Dragos, Acme, and elsewhere in NOLA. Originally we would put the unopened oysters on the grill, Mario would pick them up once they popped, pull off the top shell, then we'd spoon on some of the garlic butter and top them with cheese and parsley.
Pain in the ass, it was hard to keep up, so some oysters got overcooked, most of the liquor got dumped out, huge flareups from the butter dripping, yada, yada. So Mario started shucking them first which was a significant improvement. Last night, rather than using melted garlic butter, I made a compound butter with garlic, parsley, and a couple shots of Tabasco. So we put a pat of butter in each shucked oyster and topped it with cheese before putting them on the grill. Et voilà, not as much butter run-off, a much more manageable process.
We've kind of decided that bluepoints are the optimal oyster for charbroiling--the Netarts are good, but shells are more irregular and the intense mineral flavor is somewhat overwhelming. Still, these are great and this method is a keeper.
Finally, a brief rant. WTF does Marsee bakery think they're doing? This is Portland! City of real bread! Your "french baguette" tastes like what supermarkets used to call French Bread in the seventies. Feh.
I am wondering if we should run these under the broiler after the grill, just to put a bit more brown on the topside.
ReplyDelete