Oysters Florentine(ish) Linguine

Oysters Florentine As Prepared for Pasta:

• Chop up a couple of slices of bacon into little bits.  I always remove the biggest chunks of fat on the ends.
• Sauté them in a pan with tall sides.  (You need the tall sides to hold in the spinach until it wilts down.)
• When they’re a little brown and not too crispy yet, add some butter and a little olive oil.
• Toss in some finely chopped garlic, 2 or 3 cloves.
• Goldenbrownify.
• Add some red pepper flakes.
• Add a hefty dose of moderately chopped spinach.
• Stir.
• Salt.
• Now, you’ve already thawed out the frozen oysters that you bought last week.
• Because you thawed them in a bowl of water, you have some oyster water in a bowl.
• Pour just a little of that water into the sautéing spinach.  Don’t put in too much, just help it get some steam going and deglaze the crud that the bacon left on the bottom of the pan.
• Dump in your thawed oysters.
• Sauté for a minute or so.
• Pour in heavy cream.
• Stir.
• A squeeze of lemon juice would be good.  But, the closest thing I had was rice vinegar, and it was good.  Just don’t overdo it.
• Now, I’m pretty sure Oysters Florentine should properly have a Swiss sort of cheese, Gruyère or something.
• I didn’t have that.
• I did, however, have some really fantastic cheddar so good you’d never guess it’s related to “cheddar”, as in the orange stuff that covers “taco dip”.
• So, I grated in a little of that (white) cheddar.
• I also grated in some cheap Parmesan, as in not-very-pungent Parmesan, about double the amount of the chichi cheddar.
• Stir in a small dose of hot sauce, as in Co-op Image Hot Sauce.
• Simmer until you get an Alfredo-like consistency.
• Stir in a bunch of dried parsley.  Fresh if you’ve got it…
• Season.