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Beefsteak with Oysters
Broil a sirloin or tenderloin steak; season; take a quart of oysters and drain off the liquor; put them into the stewpan with half of a cupful of butter; a little less butter if you can add a few teaspoonfuls of cream. Salt and pepper to season it; when this comes to a boil, pour over the steak on the platter. Serve while hot.
A steak served under a butter-and-oyster sauce, in the style of a nineteenth-century chophouse. The whole thing hinges on how briefly the oysters cook.
- Cook the oysters barely at allA quart of shucked oysters needs only a minute or two in the hot butter — until the edges just ruffle and they plump. "When this comes to a boil" should be read as the moment the butter and released juices bubble, not a rolling boil; longer and they shrink and turn rubbery.
- A quart of oystersThat is roughly 2 lb of shucked oysters, the number varying widely with grade, sold by the pint or quart in tubs. Drain them as directed, but the liquor is worth keeping — a splash back in the pan loosens the sauce.
- Half a cupful of butterFour ounces, one stick. It is a great deal of butter for one steak; two to three tablespoons with a few spoonfuls of cream gives the same effect without a pool of fat on the platter.
- Broiling then and nowThe original means a hot grate or gridiron over coals. A ripping hot cast-iron pan or a broiler element at full heat gives the same crust. Rest the steak while the oysters cook.
- Sirloin or tenderloinPeriod sirloins were often cut thick and sent to table whole rather than portioned, so the steak intended here may well be larger than a single modern serving. Buy accordingly if you want the dish to feed a family.
- Seasoning orderThe original seasons the steak after broiling; modern practice is usually to salt before it goes on the heat. Either way the sauce needs very little salt of its own — the oysters are already saline, so taste before adding any.
- YieldWith a steak of around 2 lb, this quantity of sauce would serve about four. Serve on a warmed platter; the butter sauce sets and goes cloudy on a cold one.
Pairing oysters with beef was a mark of nineteenth-century American plenty rather than luxury. Oysters were dredged in enormous volume from Chesapeake Bay and Long Island Sound, packed in ice or in their own liquor, and shipped inland by rail, which made them cheap enough to use as a garnish, a stuffing, or a sauce for something more expensive. Steak smothered in oysters, oyster-stuffed turkey and steak-and-oyster pie all belong to that moment. Overharvesting and pollution eventually thinned the beds; oysters became the dear part of the dish rather than the cheap one, which is why a quart of them for a single steak reads as extravagance now and did not then.