Oysters Savannah Pirates House

I spent most of Christmas cooking dinner for the family members who each year descend on our Northeast Baltimore house at about 6 p.m. We started off with with an hors d'oeuvre of Oysters Savannah Pirates House, for which this post will share the recipe.

Next coursewas the conch chowder pictured at left, made with fresh Honduran conch purchased at Wegmans. Being low on bacon, we sustituted goose fat to start off the onions, garlic, conch, green peppers, celery, and carrots with a few pinches of dried thyme and oregano for sesoning. The broth consisted of a mixture of chicken stock (from cooking the chicken for chicken salad), bottled clam juice, and all the juice from the can of diced tomatoes that were added once the raw vegetables were somewhat cooked. The result was stupendous. Of course everyone added a little dry sherry and hot sauce to taste.

After the chowder came plates of Haitian grillots, chicken salad, and Bengalese cabbage as shown on the plate at right. Incidentally, the picture that accompanied our 2007 post with the recipe for grillots has become a hot destination on Flickr with 2,799 views thus far . It's also one of the most popular recipes ever posted at Unique Culinary Adventures. So is the Jake Slagle's chicken salad.

Here we're share our recipe for the Oysters Savannah Pirate house. It's different from several versions of similar title that appear on the Internet. Presumably the famous restaurant in Savannah with which they're eponymous has changed its preparation over the years. Our version is neither available elsewhere on the Internet nor in print, and most likely predates the others. It was inspired by a recipe that appeared in the March, 1977 Gourmet Magazine.

OYSTERS SAVANNAH PIRATE HOUSE

24 oysters, freshly opened on the half shell

1/2 pound raw bacon, finely

1/4 cup chopped green pepper

1/4 cup roasted red bell peppers, chopped

1 1/2 teaspoons Spanish paprika

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat a broiler. Combine all the ingredients other than the oysters. Place the oysters over rock salt in a pan that's suitable for broiling. Place approximately three inches below the flame and broil until the bacon is crisp, about 5 minutes.

Adapted from a recipe that appeared in the March, 1977, Gourmet Magazine

After practically shutting down during 2009, Unique Culinary Advanures plans to significantly reactivate in 2010 with at least one post each month.