Grilled Oysters with Cajun Bacon Butter

Chef Tom fires up the Aaron Franklin Edition PK Grills PK300AF charcoal grill for Grilled Oysters with Cajun Bacon Butter!

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it’s like cajun bacon butter or bacon cajun butter cajun bacon better i like that better too hey everybody i’m chef tom with atbbq.com and this is grilled oysters with cajun bacon butter that’s right today we’re cooking up fresh oysters on the half shell along with a compound butter that’s packed full of cajun spices and bits of bacon that just melt around that oyster while it’s cooking on the grill so delicious now this is a meal that comes together so quick and easy you can do it any night of the week but to be honest it would be a waste to not have some friends and family around experiencing this with you this is great for those backyard barbecues where everyone’s just gathered around the grill your experience and the visuals you’re getting the aromas and it goes so quick that you’re eating before you know it now we are going to be cooking over charcoal today so the first thing we got to do is fire it up today we’re cooking on the pk grills 300 af stands for aaron franklin and we’re going to get started with a chimney full of lump charcoal gonna light up some fire starters underneath the chimney you can use this or you could just ball up a whole bunch of paper and hope that it lasts until everything’s lit chimney and lump charcoal right on top so while the grill is heating up we’re going to shuck our oysters and the way i like to do this is usually with a cotton glove underneath a nitrile just in case you know things get a little crazy you can have a towel on hand to make sure that you don’t slip and hurt yourself but here at this tip where everything hinges you’re going to find a nice little hole work your oyster knife in there and i do recommend getting one of these oyster knives they’re 15 20 bucks and then just give it a little wiggle until it pops i’m gonna try to keep any shell from going inside we’re just gonna lift that top part off so that oyster’s sitting right there in the bottom no need to release it from the shell we’re going to put some butter in there you’re going to eat this out with a fork anyway so it’s not like we’re a fresh slurp in here really all we got to do is get that top shell off so these oysters that we’re using these are blue point oysters and one thing i’ve come across with blue point oysters is sometimes you get pea crabs that live inside of there this one doesn’t have one but i can show you what one looks like it’s that little guy right there they live inside the oyster shell and feed off the food that the oyster brings in and while it might seem kind of gross if you’re not used to it you can totally eat these at one time these little soft bodied pea crabs were actually considered a delicacy in fact according to the internet one of george washington’s favorite foods for you know take that for what it’s worth i’m not going to eat it though i’m going to take it out all right charca is hot we’re going to get this dumped all to one side so we have a direct and indirect cooking zone now immediately i want to get a few green onions on here these are going to go into our cajun bacon butter and i just want to get a little char on those but those won’t take long the other thing i want to do here immediately we’re going to get our little pot over the charcoal and start cooking down our bacon now this bacon’s just been finely diced up that’s four slices of your typical classic cut bacon just diced down small we’re gonna let that render out and get crispy bacon’s been on for about five minutes you can see we’re getting nice and crispy getting that rendered out so we’re gonna pull this off the grill now that the bacon’s done we’re going to go ahead and put together our compound butter just going to take off the ends of our green onions that we grilled these are softened up a little bit but still have a nice little bit of bite to them so we’re going to get that really nice char and then the fresh onion flavor as well everything’s going to be minced down pretty small because oysters aren’t all that big so we can’t put anything too big and chunky in our butter otherwise that’s all you taste when you get that bite we want to taste the oyster but we want to enhance it with a really flavorful butter so that’s going in with a half cup or one stick of unsalted softened butter unsalted butter is important we don’t want too much salt in here oysters are already salty bacon is salty in fact i went with a lower sodium bacon just so that we don’t overwhelm it and then when we put our cajun seasoning in there that’s also going to have salt in order to not overwhelm that flavor profile you want to start with some items that definitely are low or no salt next we’ve got some fresh garlic i’m just going to mince this down on the microplane so it’s almost to a paste consistency that way again we’re not biting into big chunks of raw you know be it onion or garlic or whatever we’re looking for about a teaspoon and a half next we’re going to take the zest off of a lemon and this is also going to go in our butter just to kind of keep keep things bright and we’ve got a little bit of freshness out of the green onion but just to add a little extra freshness a little citrus uh a little lemon zest goes a long way and then we’re just gonna get a little bit of lemon juice in here as well catching the seeds just about a half teaspoon not much next we’ve got our cajun seasoning the cattleman’s grill cajun infusion we’re going to do one tablespoon of this so this is where you get your salt you get some white and black pepper of course that paprika some basil thyme all of those great oregano thing all of those things that you think of with cajun cooking packed into that seasoning next we’ve got the cattleman’s grill pit fire hot sauce which is not terribly hot but it is a great kind of southern style vinegar-based hot sauce great vinegar twang to it do a teaspoon and a half of that finally we’ve got our bacon which has cooled down here a bit now we just got to mix it all up a lot of times with compound butters once you get past this point you’re going to want to form this into a log let it set up in the fridge until it’s firm and chilled down but today we don’t need to worry about that because we’re just going to dollop this right on top of our oysters so once it’s fully mixed it’s ready to go next we’re going to take our butter and just put a nice big dollop right on top of the raw oyster see i like that the butter is kind of room temp here softened up because we don’t have to wait any time at all for it to melt down and just almost almost like a a cone fee action where this these oysters are just going to be surrounded in our cajun bacon butter the charcoal is still plenty hot i can’t can’t keep my hand there for more than about two or three seconds which is what we’re looking for you want some nice intense direct heat underneath the oysters this is going to be the way to transport them get some tongs you’re going to hold them from the end here it’s about the best way to make sure you don’t burn yourself in the process try and keep them as upright as possible you are going to lose some liquid you are going to lose some butter don’t stress about it just try to get them positioned as best you can and the whole point of the butter being in there on top of just adding all that extra flavor is to keep these nice and juicy so that once that natural oyster juice that’s in there kind of begins to cook out that’s when these want to come off and there’s still plenty of butter left in there to keep them juicy so i’m going to close the door just for about 30 seconds here just to get that butter melting on top we’ll go ahead and close this down right above that way all that heat’s just kind of trapped there so this is exactly what we’re looking for you want to see all that liquid bubbling all the way around the oyster just long enough to get that thing hooked a little bit through it we don’t want these rubbery so these are definitely going to come off in stages they just need it depends on how hot you’re cooking but as you can see this stuff on the right here is not getting done nearly as quickly but they’re gonna need a good probably three to five minutes at this simmer once you’ve reached that point so as these kind of finish we’re moving them off to indirect heat very little heat at all over there right now just trying to take care not to lose any of these juices and keep as much of that butter and oyster juice in there as possible this right here is pretty ideal after it’s been bubbling away some of that’s reduced down your oyster is tender not tough that’s what we’re looking for we’re going to finish these off with just a little bit of minced parsley right on top help break up some of that fatty buttery goodness and as soon as these are cool enough to handle they’re ready to eat so we’re going to go out this with a fork i don’t have one of those really cute little ones but this’ll have to do and get as much on there as i can such briny goodness i can’t leave any of that behind boy the crunch of the bacon that really stands out you’re not used to having such a wild textural difference in an oyster so that crunch is really nice it breaks up that texture of the oyster which you know here just three to five minute cook still nice and soft not tough or chewy or anything like that and while you get some of that natural salinity uh out of the oyster that saltiness it’s covered really well by the fatty butter just fully encased in it i gotta get another one of these and then there’s this brightness from the lemon from that little bit of lemon juice and zest that garlic butter though man that’s where it’s at misfired well thank you guys so much for watching be sure to check out atbbq.com for all the products featured in today’s video if you enjoy the recipe hit that subscribe button and if you have any questions or comments so there’s anything you’d like to see me cook let me know in the comment section down below and let’s 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