Charcoal Oysters

"Grilled" Oysters from Hog Island

Summertime is in full swing here in the Mid-Atlantic.  Balmy days, warm nights, Jersey shore trips, raucous community pools.  Wawa's Hoagiefest is going hard and Rita's Water Ice lines are around the block.  Neighborhood kids are playing barefoot wiffle ball while parents exchange garden fresh tomatoes.  There's an indescribable yet very tangible joy that runs through the whole region this time of year.  I really missed it while living on the West Coast.  Sure, there were equally if not more beautiful days and seasons in California.  That's why it's such a desirable, and expensive, place to live.  But you need those contrasting, bitterly cold winter months to feel that true jubilation for the summer ones.  And of all the things I love about an East Coast summer, one of my favorites has to be the backyard barbecues that are ripping hot on a daily basis.

The summer, however, is a bit of a peculiar time for oysters.  Historically, they've been a seasonal food, reserved for harvest and consumption in late fall through early spring.  You know, the old "only eat oysters in months that have an 'R'" adage.  It's still largely observed in many parts of the Gulf Coast and Southeastern US.  And there are a few sound reasons for this longstanding practice:

• 

  Funny Book No. 6

  Oysters, once out of the water, must be kept cold or they'll spoil.  Refrigerated shipping and storage are relatively new.  We've eaten oysters for millennia, but properly chilled storage year-round is less than 100 years old.  As such, fresh oysters could only be safely harvested, shipped, stored, and consumed in colder months for most of our history.
  
  
• The warmer waters of summer breed more dangerous bacteria and algal blooms.  Oysters are filter feeders, so if anything harmful is in the ecosystem, they're one of the first species to pick it up.  Before regulatory oversight and water quality monitoring, oysters in the summer were harvested and consumed at one's own risk.
  
  
• Like many species, oysters procreate seasonally.  The warmer waters of May and June signal oysters that it's time to breed.  Throughout history, most societies knew that maintaining sustainable harvests of any wild food meant leaving it alone while it was reproducing.  And before oyster farming became the standard it is today, people were mostly reliant on wild reefs for their oyster fix.       

Fortunately, most of these concerns no longer apply.  Oysters are safely chilled and shipped or stored all around the world.  You can even express overnight them with ice packs directly from oyster farmers.  Government agencies diligently monitor water quality at shellfish farming and harvesting grounds, so no need for that Penicillin mignonette.  It's more likely you'll get ill from tainted lettuces or compromised lunch meats.  And nowadays, roughly 95% of the oysters we consume in North America are bred and farmed.  Wild oyster restoration is still desperately needed for a host of other reasons, but eating oysters year-round no longer threatens their wild populations.  The "months with R" dogma still persists, and many in the oyster industry are doing their best to dispel it.  Prominent publications annually shed some light on the topic, oyster festivals are common now during summer months, and official National Oyster Day is even in August.

Triploid & Spawny Oyster via Fukui NA

However, the one thing that remains is the quality of oysters in the summer months.  Don't get me wrong, I'll crush a dozen raw oysters any time of the year.  But they are undeniably better during the winter.  Oysters store up glycogen reserves so they can basically hibernate during the cold months.  This makes them rich, plump, and full of flavor.  Come late spring or summer, they've either converted their remaining reserves to gamete for procreation, creating a slightly creamier oyster, or they've exhausted those reserves, leading to a leaner, less flavorful oyster.  They're fine, just not the best quality, like a grocery store tomato in January.  Farmers have worked around this a bit by breeding triploid oysters, but triploids' long term viability is in question.  So with summer oysters, I say there's only one thing to do - supplement with flavor and fire!

Drago's' "Charbroiled" Oysters

During the warmer months, my favorite way to cook oysters is outdoors over charcoal.  However, the question that bothered me: what is that called?  If you go by arguably the most famous iteration of oysters over charcoal, Drago's in Louisiana, it's charbroiled.  You also see this version referred to as chargrilled, and the same is true in most establishments across the South.  Elsewhere in the US, on most menus or in most recipes, they're simply called grilled oysters.  The disclaimer here is that they may be fired over coals, wood, or gas.  In some instances, they're BBQ or barbecued oysters.  Now, we're all adults here and know the difference between grilling and "proper BBQ," so I'm not opening that can of beans (Get it?  Because beans go well with BBQ.  Worms don't go well with BBQ).  I like smoked oysters, but I don't think anyone would classify them as American pitmaster fare.  Across the pond, what we call a broiler the British call a grill.  What we call a grill (or a BBQ in some areas), they exclusively call a BBQ.  What do they call their oysters cooked over charcoal?  There's also W.C. Bradley Co. with their trademarked line of products named Char-Broil® or Charbroil®.  And those are mostly outdoor grills and BBQs.   So I am confusion.

The reality is that regardless of all the regional parlance and differing nomenclature, the methodology is essentially the same.  Shuck oysters, add fats with seasonings, place the oysters on a metal grate with fire below, cook.  So, in a nod to Josh Niland, I'm just going with "Charcoal Oysters" and calling it a day.  

Charcoal Oysters

I'm a big fan of the vegetable-forward

"Grilled" Oysters at Greystone

movement we've seen in cooking over the last decade.  It's not vegetarian or vegan, but rather a celebration of seasonal produce with sustainability in mind.  Peak quality vegetables are the focus of main dishes and often supplemented with animal proteins; it's a complete inversion of the classic meat-main-vegetable-side.  Stewed chickpeas with spicy sausage, roasted carrots with beef tallow, grilled asparagus with crispy chicken skin.  The BLT, a tomato sandwich seasoned with bacon, is the OG of vegetable-forward dishes.  Vegetable focused cooking is also a direction we'd all benefit moving towards.  Edge practices aside, vegetable production is more environmentally friendly and sustainable than animal production.  Vegetable consumption, writ large, is also healthier than animal protein consumption.  Despite all the snake oil supplements and paleo meal plans influencers are constantly throwing in our faces, we all know in our heart of hearts that a good diet isn't too complicated.  Michael Pollan's "Eat Food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants." summed it up pretty well 20 years ago.  

I carried this logic over to my charcoal oyster project.  Oysters, after all, are arguably one the most sustainable farmed items around, more so than some vegetables.  Seasoning with animal proteins is also delicious.  Traditional chargrilled oysters are composed of a garlic and herb compound butter with lemon and topped with parmesan cheese.  This is the Drago's classic.  Other notable versions include Cajun butter, classic BBQ sauce, and chipotle bourbon.  I wanted to push the limits of traditional.  As Julia Child used to say, "fat gives things flavor," so with oysters in the cooler and coals smokin' hot, let's get it! 

Mexican Chorizo & Cilantro

I say it time and time again: salty pig parts and shellfish is a brilliant pairing.  And few dishes are more representative of that than grilled oysters with chorizo.  I've also made this exact dish dozens of times.  So much that I'm almost annoyed by how frequently friends and family request it at get-togethers.  However, I figured it best to start with a sure-fire hit in my charcoal oyster and animal seasoning experiment.  Build a little confidence.  I rendered some chorizo on low heat to extract as much fat and flavor as possible.  Then I mixed in a little cilantro once slightly cooled and set it aside for topping oysters.  What's the saying?  "Sometimes simple is simply the best."  Feels appropriate for this dish. 

Beef Bone Marrow & Parsley

Bone marrow is a pretty polarizing food.  There are those who think it's disgusting and refuse to try it.  Then there are those who have tried it and love it, because, well, it's delicious.  Rich, beefy, and unctuous in all the right ways.  This one felt like a no brainer.  I purged some canoe cut beef marrow bones in salt water overnight to remove any particulate.  Next, I rinsed, lightly seasoned, and roasted them for 20 minutes.  Once cooked, I mixed half of the marrow into some crispy garlic sauteed in butter.  When cooled, I added in a little parsley and set it aside for topping oysters.  The other half of the marrow was a nice lunchtime treat spread over toasted sourdough.   

Schmaltz & Thyme

Schmaltz is the Yiddish word for rendered poultry fat, typically chicken.  It's got a fascinating history, being widely adopted by Central and Eastern European Jews through a combination of Kosher diets, limited resources, and land discrimination.  Another example of some of the best foods coming from hardship.  It's also known as liquid gold, and is the not-so-secret secret behind much Ashkenazi cooking.  Put it in pretty much anything and it's going to taste great.  I bought six bone-in chicken thighs and butchered out the bones and skin for stock and rendering.  The thigh meat was repurposed for a chicken adobo taco Tuesday, much to my kids' delight.  After reducing, I sieved the stock into a jar and the glistening, liquidy-gold chicken fat separated to the surface.  Once chilled, I scraped off the layer of schmaltz, mixed in some thyme, and set it aside for topping oysters. 

Virgin Coconut Oil & Lemon Balm

I know.  It sounds more like a skincare product than grilled oyster topping.  However, there's a movement known as ostroveganism or bivalveganism, and I wanted to make a charcoal oyster that met this criteria.  The idea is that some bivalves, like mussels, clams, and oysters, don't have central nervous systems, and therefore are neither sentient nor feel pain, satisfying one of the primary tenets of veganism.  Sure, they feed, react to stimuli, even move in some instances.  However, there's a growing subset of vegans that argue this is more akin to a plant's existence than an animal's.  There are also supporting considerations around the health benefits of oysters, as well as their positive environmental impact.  The concept has been around since the '70s, but it's caught fire over the last decade.  There's even a self-proclaimed vegan & vegetarian restaurant in DC that serves an oyster course.  Dietary practices are profoundly personal, so whatever makes people happy is ok in my book.  To make this ostrovegan charcoal oyster, the most flavorful plant-based fat I could think of was virgin coconut oil.  I lightly warmed a little on the stove, added some fresh tamarind and lemon balm, and set it aside for topping oysters. 

L to R: Chorizo, Schmaltz, Bone Marrow, Coconut Oil

With all four flavorful fats ready to go, I fired up the charcoal and started shucking away on a sunny Saturday afternoon.  The funny thing about the Wellfleet oysters I'd got from Hill's Quality Seafood is that they were all perfect.  Rich, plump, and tasty; not your typical summer oysters.  Don't worry, I enjoyed a few raw before prepping a dozen for the grill.  With charcoal oysters, there's one simple rule - do not overcook them!  As soon as the liquor bubbles and the oysters start to curl at the edges, they're done.  Just a few minutes to incorporate all the toppings but not lose the natural juicy and snappy texture of fresh oysters.  Another tricky thing about cooking oysters over charcoal is their concave, oddly shaped bottom shells.  When placed on a grill grate, some will always tilt or list, leading to oyster liquor and fats spilling over the sides onto the coals.  Many chefs roast or oven-broil their oysters on a bed of rock salt for this very reason.  However, even if you lose a little bit of flavorful liquid, each one of those drips leads to an aromatic flame up.  The oysters really aren't on the grill long enough to impart a ton of charcoal flavor, so I welcome each little smokey kiss they can get.     

Starting at 12 o'clock and going clockwise:
Schmaltz, Chorizo, Coconut Oil, Bone Marrow

After a few minutes over the coals, I had my dozen charcoal oysters ready to go.  The chorizo & cilantro topped with pickled jalapeño was great, as I'd expected.  I added a little pickled garlic to the bone marrow & parsley to cut through the richness, which also turned out great.  The ostrovegan coconut oil & lemon balm definitely surprised, though.  The tamarind became a little too tacky, but that blooming aroma of coconut oil is tough to beat, especially when finished with a fresh red chile.  It felt like I was taking a bite of a grilled seafood feast on a beach in the Bahamas.  However, hands down, the schmaltz & thyme was the best, blowing the other three out of the water.  Topped with some brunoised nectarine, because summer stone fruit is amazing, it was the perfect balance of briny, sweet, slightly acidic, and deeply savory.  I wasn't terribly surprised.  Like I said, put chicken fat on anything and it's going to taste great.

Chargrilled, charbroiled, grilled, barbecued, or whatever you want to call them, oysters over charcoal are shuckin' delicious.  I hope y'all have a wonderful summer and get more than a few chances to throw some seafood on the grill.  Just don't forget the schmaltz. 

 

Cheers,

The SF Oyster Nerd


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