How to Cook Oysters and Prepare Oyster Sauce with John Finger | Pottery Barn

Pottery barn Party Planner Barbecued Oysters
Hi I'm John finger, founder and an owner here at Hog Island Oyster Company with Pottery Barn,
and today we're going to talk about once you've purchased oysters,
how to care for them,
how to open them, and then a few different ways of preparing them.
If you purchased oysters the next thing you need to be aware of is how to care for them to
make sure that they're gonna stay alive. Cold and damp, those are the two things, so either in a cooler with
some ice or
in the refrigerator. You want to make sure they have a damn cloth over the top of them and preferably
you have them in some kind of shallow bowl, cupside down.
A quick lesson on shucking oysters - you are going to use some sort of kitchen towel on a flat surface.
An oyster knife is of course a very necessary tool in all of this. At the pointed end the two
shells come together,
and there's a little bit of a gap or a ligament,
and that's where you're going to insert the knife.
So what you're going to do is using a kitchen towel as a nest and over the top of it
is you're going to insert the knife at that hinge point
and you're gonna apply pressure and twist at the same time back and forth until the point of
the knife engages in there.
And you're gonna twist
and there's a pop.
So then what you're gonna do is sliding the knife against the top shell you're gonna reach across
that muscle there
and slice
that muscle
and then you're gonna pull
the top shell off
and the last thing is here's that muscle, loosen that muscle so the meat
is all nice and loose in their. If you're gonna have them raw
you're gonna serve them on ice for instance in these great Pottery barn bowls here. So now we've got our
oysters sucked,
I'm going to show you a quick little sauce that we do that's very popular called hogwash
for raw oysters.
We start off with rice vincegar, we use half seasoned, half unseasoned,
then we use chopped up cilantro,
the lime juice
some jalapeno peppers, and some shallots.
That's it.
It's just real simple, here it is we have some here
In another great Pottery Barn bowl,
um
Hogwash all made up here.
You just want to spoon a little bit on your oyster,
um
and the best way if you don't have an oyster fork to do this is
you hold it by the pointed end
with your thumb and middle finger, leaving your index finger free to push the oyster out.
What's really popular in northern California that a lot of people don't do in other parts
of the country is barbecuing oysters. When you barbecue oysters you want to use a slightly bigger oyster.
You want to do that because they tend to shrink down when they cook a little bit.
We have two sauces here to try today. This first one is a real traditional recipe. This is
casino butter
here.
Uh so obviously it has butter in it,
um
it also has paprika, and bacon
and shallots.
A nice traditional shellfish recipe.
And another one that's real popular that we make in our restaurants
is, um,
harissa
which is a kyu pepper blend
a little olive oil,
cumin, and coriander in it as well.
You don't want to put too much on there that you totally overwhelm the oyster.
What you want to watch for
is for the sauce to start bubbling and and the oyster meat to start bubbling around the edges.
Some people like theirs a little more well done than other people but three to five minutes.
Okay, so now our barbecue oysters are done
you can see they're bubbling the meat's plumped up a little bit, I don't like mine too overly
done.
We're gonna take them off
and put them on this great Pottery Barn platter with some rock salt,
and just nestle them in there like that.
These are our casino - you can see the little bits of bacon in there. And if you really want to keep it hot for
a longer period time you can preheat the rock salt.
And then these are our Harissa.
And of course you can always put a little dash of lemon on there
uh, as you're having them to augment the flavors. Whatever I'm barbecuing oysters I want to make sure
I've got some great crusty France bread around, to sop up that sauce. It's too good to go to waste.
And some lemons. Just all simple, simple complimentary things.
I like an ice-cold Pilsner, or Sauvignon Blanc, or dry Muscadet, some good simple clean
beverages to go with it.
That's it. I mean you don't want to overdo it, so have some family and friends over and have
a great time. Thanks.
Please visit www.potterybarn.com/oysters for more tips on fresh oysters. www.hogislandoysters.com