Welcome to The club eatswhere we celebrate the game’s finest food and drink. Hope you brought your appetite.
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If combined pizza AND oysters it never occurred to you, well, you’d be forgiven for believing that the two foods might never have a logical reason to meet. But in 3, a 12-hole short course in GreenvilleSC, Chef Chris Wehking was inspired by a clam and pepperoni dish he tried at a restaurant in Charleston. There was no room for an on-site pizza oven at 3 o’clock, so Wehking decided to put an oyster pizza on the menu.
“It’s kind of a way to get the flavors of pizza in one bite, without the pizza oven,” Wehking said.
The key to creating that pizza flavor is the house-made pepper butter, which Wehking creates by grinding pepper and rendering all the fat in the stove. The fat is then beaten into butter, which is then drizzled generously over each oyster.
Wehking’s favorite oysters are the Virginia saltcakes, which he favors for their large, meaty texture.
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After mixing the oysters, Wehking places six on a baking sheet and adds a big dollop of pepperoni butter, followed by a sprinkling of grated Parmesan cheese. Next, Wehking broilers the oysters for about 90 seconds.
“When you cook oysters, the longer you cook them, the drier they get, they can get tough,” Wehking said. “They’re going to shrivel up, you’re going to lose that flesh. You will lose the juice that is inside them that has all that flavor. So we just want to do a quick cookout.”
When the oysters are done, Wehking adds a crumbling garlic breadcrumb and a sprinkling of fresh parsley before serving immediately.
And how to enjoy oysters?
“Squeeze some lemon and put it back,” Wehking said.
To see a full tutorial of Wehking’s method, watch the video above. To learn more about 3 Greenville, click here.
