At a party this past fall, a friend - let's call him Bill as that's his name - and I were discussing our mutual love of raw oysters. In a boozy, gregarious mood, I proposed that we have a night where we buy a few dozen oysters from the farmer's market and share them with a couple friends. At the next get together a month later, I said, "We still have to do that oyster night," and offered to steam a couple crabs and make clam chowder. Bill offered to make scampi.
At the next shindig, Michael and Cristina were included in the oyster-fest equation which now had a date, January 6. They are germane to the discussion because they are restauranteurs - like badass restauranteurs. They offered to buy the seafood for Crustacean Celebration (CC) through their wholesaler. Seemed sensible until I called Michael to place the order, which went a little something like this:
Me: So, I was going to make clam chowder, steam some Dungeness crab and Bill's making scampi.
Michael: O.K. So how about 15 pounds of cherrystone clams, 10 pounds of U12 shrimp, I'll bring some littlenecks to eat raw...how many crabs? Eight?
Me: ...um...that seems like a lot of...
Michael: Fine, five pounds of shrimp. Six crabs.
Me: ...Sure?
Michael: I'll bring over scallops, too.
Me: And I'll go to the Hollywood farmers' market to get the oysters.
Michael: O.K. So I'll just bring over six dozen Kumamotos.
Me: There are only going to be 12 of us.
Michael: Look, Marty: You can eat a dozen oysters in your sleep. Whatever we shuck will get eaten. Trust me.
Lesson One: Trust the Master.
It was a little intimidating cooking clam chowder for the first time for a chef about to open his second restaurant, a high-end seafood shack serving three types of chowder, but I had committed to the dish before I knew that. When I went to pick up the seafood from the restaurant the day before CC, Michael gave me the two-minute rundown:
- Put the clams in the freezer for an hour to kill them to make them easier to open
- Save the clam juice and store the shucked meat in the fridge
- Make the soup the night before so the flavor penetrates the (Idaho) potatoes
- Use bottled clam juice if you want - it's a good product
- Serve heavy cream (reduced by half) on the side so people can have creamy chowder if they want
- Just before service, chop the raw clams into the reheated soup so they don't get overcooked
- Don't add flour, the starch from the potatoes will thicken the soup
Lesson Two: Knife Skills
Apparently, it's not enough to stick a clam in the freezer for an hour to kill it. Cherrystone clams are resilient creatures. Even though they had reached 26 degrees, they still hadn't died. They needed to freeze and thus refused to succumb to my pryings. That I was using a butter knife might also have been a problem. Thankfully, Bill and his wife brought a clam shucking knife which saved the chowder.
But I did feel like a badass with my bona fide oyster shucking knife. You just pop the tip into the hinge of the shell, lean into it and pray it doesn't slip and sever an artery, which is why they make them dull. Michael brought his own shucker, which was sharp enough to cut paper. He was popping open oysters like a Frat brother opens beer cans. It was a frightening blade, but really it makes sense since it gets into the gap so much more efficiently. Just like with regular cutting, a sharper, more effective knife will reduce the incidence of injury.
Michael and I both brought mignonette sauce and I was humbled once more. His shallots were chopped in perfect 1 mm x 1 mm squares while mine - which I had been proud of - looked they had been savaged by a cross-eyed psychopath. The divide between the professional from the enthusiast is vast.
Lesson Three: Trade Secrets
Despite feeling hopelessly incompetent, I was still eager to learn:
A shrimp boil is a misnomer. I tossed the giant shrimp into hot broth and turned off the heat. They will cook at 140 degrees or so. I sort of forgot about them but when I served them fifteen minutes later, they were perfectly cooked, moist and firm.
It was fine to store the crabs in the cooler overnight covered with wet newspaper and a couple ice cubes. 36 hours later, they were alive, albeit slow.
After you shuck an oyster, flip it with a cleaned knife so that the belly is on top. It's purtier that way.
Fresh is better (duh). Michael brought these scallops attached to their shell that were so fresh, when you flicked them, the muscle contracted. He painted them lightly with butter then grilled them face down. He then flipped them finishing them with a bit of butter, lemon and pimenton. The best scallop I've ever eaten.
A New Annual Tradition
Under the guidance of a master, CC was a massive success. Everything was delicious and all the oysters were, indeed, consumed. Cristina suggested we do this every year and even proposed a springtime Fin Festival (FF) where we charter a fishing boat and only cook what fish we caught that day. We shall see how that works out for a motion sickness-prone land lubber like me.
During post-feast poker, the one thing I lamented was that the chowder was on the thin side to which Michael responded, "I told you to use Idaho potatoes. You should have listened to me."
