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Gwen: Hi I am Gwen Schoen, Food Writer at the Sacramento Bee. And today in the kitchen, Ed Jayousi, owner of Fins Seafood Market & Grill is here to show us how to check oysters.
Nice to have you back in the kitchen with us Ed.
Ed: Thank you. The first thing that you want when you buy oysters, you want to make sure you are buying from a raptile source. There are many places where you can buy oysters. These are Chesapeake oysters. We get them from Chesapeake Bay.
One of the keys to buying an oyster is making sure that it is close completely because it is alive.
Gwen: Okay.
Ed: And when you do buying from any supermarket or any seafood market, you want to make sure that they do not seal your bag. You leave your bag open so that it can breathe.
Okay, so basically, we are going to wash our oysters. Use cold water and we are going to rinse them really well and kind of takes some of the beard off. And always keep them in ice while you working with oysters.
So you want to have the cup pointing downwards. We are going to put it at the edge of the towel right here, grab the towel and fold it on top. While we are doing that, we are going to put pressure with out left hand if you are right handed, you are going to put pressure with your left hand that relaxes the muscle of the joint that was back here.
Gwen: Okay.
Ed: We take out oyster trucker.
Gwen: This is the part that scares me.
Ed: And we just go as deep as we can without really trying to hurt ourselves and just tweak it sideways.
Gwen: Oh.
Ed: And just relaxes the muscles very easily and then, we straighten our knife and we will go right through it straight.
Gwen: It is still looks hard. Okay,
Ed: Nice one and then all we do is we loosen that part right there, and we have a nice oyster ready to go. Okay, we are going to have to try one.
Gwen: I think I can do this do this now huh.
Ed: Basically that is seafood can pick [voice overlap]
Gwen: Pick an easy one.
Ed: This should be a good one right here.
Gwen: Okay.
Ed: So basically, you are going to put that right there. You are going to fold your towel over it and you are going to put pressure. Apply pressure as much as you can.
Gwen: And then push this sort of down.
Ed: Yes, right there, and then just tweak with your hand these ways. Just a little more pressure, do not try -- there you go.
Gwen: Okay, that was a good workout!
Ed: And then, you just set your hand right on top there and go with the knife all the way through, just very gently, just loosen it up, you can pull that up with your hand. Just let the knife do the work.
Gwen: Okay.
Ed: Let the knife---perfect!
Gwen: Perfect! Alright, and then cut from this side?
Ed: For first time, that was pretty darn good.
Gwen: Cut from this side?
Ed: Yes, you just want to loosen that joint that was right there. You are going to go from underneath it and go all the way around, loosen that up, in fairness and it was done.
Gwen: Thanks a lot.
Ed: You are very welcome.
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