Baked Oysters (Monday, May 23, 2011)

I've been meaning to go to the Asian market for more than a month to get some things.  If an ingredient is used in Asian cooking, you can probably get it much cheaper at an Asian market.  For instance, ginger is $1 a pound and your slightly more exotic mushrooms (shitake, crimini and oyster) are about a third of the price of a regular grocery store.  Additionally, if you want fresh seafood of any kind, you have much more selection and better prices at an Asian market.  Oh!  And, we can forget about all those extra animal parts!  I bought a handful of snacks that some coworkers introduced me to, including sichuan peanuts and tofu snacks (essentially tofu jerky).  I also bought some spices, vinegars, various noodles and some oxtail (which I will feature later).  In the seafood aisle I did numerous passes by some oysters.  I really wanted to buy them but I was worried about it.  I trust an oyster bar, but not myself.  I attempted to ask the guy working at the seafood counter if I could eat them raw, but he didn't understand.  I tilted my head back making a slurping sound while pantomiming eating a raw oyster.  He shook his head "yes" and repeated my motions.  I still wasn't quite convinced.  I went ahead and bought 8 of them anyway at 80 cents a piece.  These things were huge, and I made sure to pick out the biggest in the bunch, considering the "per piece" pricing.  After some Googling about determining freshness of oysters I was pretty sure mine were fresh.  They didn't smell foul, they were closed and were on ice when I bought them.  Not only were they closed, but they were a bitch to open.  One gave me particular trouble so I hammered it a while to produce an opening for my butter knife shucking tool.  Anyway, I decided not to eat them raw and instead started making a stuffing with the ultimate hope of producing baked oysters.

I began with onion, celery and garlic in a pan with butter.  Along the way I added some chopped shitake and spinach (recently picked from my garden).  When everything was cooked I added some bread crumbs and a handful of romano cheese (Sheep's milk of course, leftover from months ago).  After shucking and separating the oysters, I placed them on a pan, using wads of foil to help them stand when needed.  I added a good helping of my filling to each and topped them with more romano, parmesan, panko bread crumbs and a drizzle of olive oil.  These went into a 350 degree oven for about 12 minutes until the tops were golden brown.

I could only manage to eat 5 of them.  These things were seriously monstrous.  I didn't get sick and now I'm more confident of buying oysters, though it would be nice to be able to talk to someone who speaks English and knows exactly how fresh the oysters are.  Maybe I'll make a trip to a nice grocery store to compare prices and ask some questions.  After my belly was full, I was able to settle in for the rest of Game 4 of the NBA Western Conference Finals (Dallas Mavericks at Oklahoma City Thunder) in which the Mavericks overcame a 15 point deficit with 5 minutes left in the game to tie and eventually win in overtime taking a 3-1 series lead.  GO MAVS!