This is How to Cook an Oyster!

So my buddy JW and I went to New Orleans for a football game - we went to see LSU play Alabama. On the way to the game, JW asked it I had ever had Drago's Charbroiled Oysters. I had not...and after his description of of them, I said "I have to try them!!!".

This is what they looked like:

The guys cook the oysters on an open grill, then they pop them open and cut the oyster from the shell, leaving the oyster in the half shell.

Next they add the butter sauce and cheeses:
(here's the recipe)
8 ounces butter (softened)
2 tablespoons garlic (finely chopped)
1 teaspoon black pepper
Pinch dried oregano
18 large oysters (freshly shucked on the half shell)
1 ounce Parmesan cheese (grated)
1 ounce Romano cheese (grated)
2 teaspoons flat-leaf parsley (chopped)

Finally, they put the oysters on a tray and slide them into a specialty commercial broiler called a "Salamander".

Now JW and I eat a lot of oysters and have roasted many a bushel, so to copy Drago's, we had no problem. We had the oysters, we had the recipe & ingredients....but we did not have "The Salamander". This was a integral part of the process - just putting the oysters back on the grill will not do it. You have to have the heat from above in order to get the butter and cheeses to that beautiful golden brown.

JW told me he had a butane torch for browning the tops of crème brulee and we agreed that would work, but what a chore and way too time consuming. We knew we needed a more robust tool to match the heating/cooking power of "The Salamander"!

So....I was watching one of my favorite TV shows, "Gold Rush". In this episode, Parker Schnabel's sluicing machine was frozen into the permafrost. The fix? The guys brought out "The Tiger Torch" and in short order, heated up the metal framing on the sluicing machine which in turn thawed the permafrost, allowing the miners to move the huge machine. Upon seeing this "Tiger Torch", I said to myself, "Now that will work!!!"

And it did:

The end!