The Best Seafood Tools for Throwing a Summer Shellfish Boil

A huge part of having a proper feast is making sure you’ve got the tools for the job. Have you ever been to a dinner party at someone’s house and been served spaghetti with a big ladle? Have you seen a whole pizza hacked to hell with a serrated bread knife? Been served a Negroni that was “mixed” in a 32-ounce plastic cup from Bobby’s Bar and Grill? Not only do these types of blunders look super amateurish, but they commit one of the cardinal sins of cooking: They fail to respect the food and the people eating it. If you’re setting out to cook me a lasagna, that’s wonderful. Thank you. I love it. Can’t wait to try it. I’ll bring the wine. But if you cut up that bad boy hot out of the oven—when you should have let it cool and settle—with a butter knife, and then try to transport it to my plate using one or two forks, letting it flop and slop all over the place to the point where it no longer even really resembles a beautiful square of lasagna and looks more like a nondescript mountain of “Italian food”… well, I’m still gonna eat it, because lasagna totally rules. But that’ll definitely compromise my *aesthetic experience*, and make the whole thing slightly less special.

Seafood is one of the most important categories of “food that needs its own tools.” Whether you think you’re already a pro at shucking oysters, can’t wait to serve up your next shrimp cocktail, or are gearing up to throw your first lobster feast, I am begging you to please start off on the right foot and set yourself up for success by picking up a couple inexpensive, easy-to-use tools that will make you seem like a literal seafood genius who just got off a fishing boat in New England. Like, it’s cool that you know that shrimp need to be deveined, but if you’re out here trying to do it with a comically big knife, you’re just setting yourself up for pain.

I recently tested some of GOAT cooking brand OXO’s greatest seafood tools by throwing a massive seafood party that involved slinging a ton of martinis alongside oysters (both raw and Rockefeller) and a massive boil, which included crab, shrimp, mussels, and clams. Did I need to spend like $300 on fish and gin to test these tools that collectively total $50? No, but I did it for you, friend. You’re welcome. If you’re trying to shake off your landlubber ways and become the crab whisperer you know you were born to be, it’s time to put down the Hemingway novel and boot up Master and Commander for the 20th time while peeping our list of the seafood tools you absolutely must own.

Put shellfish in its rightful place

Listen, we get it—you’re Jason Momoa and can bust through any seafood shells with your hands alone. Except that you can’t, and you actually do look like an idiot trying to twist and pull your way into a mangled crab leg that now looks like it belongs in a grocery store salad bar. Congrats on feeling strong, though! Real talk: If you’re trying to bust out that pristine crab meat or offer up the sexiest lobster claw on the table to your bae with hopes that they’ll take you down to the dock (read: have sex) after dinner, you have to do it confidently, and with the most efficient tools. You need a seafood and nut cracker. This one feels good in the hand and is super easy to maneuver into the perfect angle for crackin’ perfection.

Become a master of oysters (and of not stabbing yourself)

NGL, shucking oysters is very fun, and actually pretty easy when you get decent at it (not to mention that it’ll skyrocket your chances of getting laid if you do it during a horny dinner, since they’re supposedly very strong aphrodisiacs). It’s almost a meditative practice, forcing you to focus and connect with what you’re doing. All you’ll need to start is a pair of good gloves and a great oyster knife. I love using this one because it’s got a bent tip that gives you a perfect angle to find that perfect little opening and pry it into briny perfection. Don’t let someone convince you that you need a $50 oyster shucking knife when this really excellent one costs a whopping 12 bucks (or, for context, the price of like two oysters at the pseudo-nautical-themed bar in your neighborhood).

Give guests the clean shrimp they deserve

Hmm, what’s the classiest way to put this? How about: When you’re serving shrimp, you’ve gotta get up in that dook chute with a sharp ass blade and take these crustaceans to the bootyhole salon so you’re not serving your guests literal doo doo. Nailed it. Anyway, this deveiner makes it extremely easy to elegantly prepare and clean shrimp; its guard somehow both shields you from getting cut and also conceals the fact that you’re, um, doing what you’re doing.

The first cut is the deepest

If you don’t have a good pair of kitchen shears, how are you taking care of business? Please, friend. A pair specifically for seafood, though? Now that’s an absolutely necessary instrument for getting the most from your crab, shrimp, or lobster. When I threw my big seafood feast, my friend’s girlfriend (who is from Maine) blew our minds with her surgical use of these shears to consistently extract Michelin star-level perfect pieces of crab meat. Be like her and get some shears to impress the hell out of your dining companions. Or you could, you know, just keep hackin’ around in there with your fork.

Guilty of breakin’ those (c)laws!

Want to be the judge, jury, and executioner of the crabs and lobsters humbly standing before you, asking to be absolved of their crimes (of being delicious)? Take ‘em to court with this powerful tool of justice and remind them that only god forgives. This wooden seafood gavel mallet will turn you into the Judge Dredd of cooking. Because, sometimes, the seafood cracker just isn’t enough.

To quote Bubba from Forrest Gump, “Shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. There's uh, shrimp kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That's about it.” Bon appétit.

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