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Oyster Salad
For a can of cove oysters, take a teacup half full of cream, a heaping tablespoonful of butter, a teacupful or less of vinegar, a teaspoonful of made mustard, cayenne or black pepper, and salt and sugar to suit. Whisk the eggs thoroughly; mix in the other ingredients; put in a saucepan; set this in a vessel of boiling water, and cook until the whole is thick. Use any flavoring you like , and some pounded cracker. Chop the oysters fine, pour over the dressing, mixing all together.
Cole Slaw. To make cole slaw, take one heaping teaspoonful each of mustard and salt, two tablespoonfuls of cream, one tablespoonful of butter, three tablespoonfuls of sugar, two-thirds of a cup of vinegar, yolks of two eggs, well beaten; stir all together and set on the fire, stirring constantly until it thickens, then pour on chopped cabbage.
III. Various Made Dishes.
THE talent of the cook may be employed in preparing many nice dishes from remnants that are too often thrown away. The stew-pan, the saucepan, the gridiron, the omelette-pan and the toasting-iron come in well here into play. These may be called dishes of taste and economy.
An Economical Dish. Take the remnant of a cold boiled leg of mutton, or of a roast of beef; shave it into thin slices; season, and add, if you like it, an onion chopped fine, or a pinch of sweet herbs. Put this on a baking-dish, and pour over the gravy, if you have any; if not, a little water, butter and flour. Then take hot boiled potatoes; mash fine; add a little milk and salt, or butter, to soften
A cooked boiled dressing poured over chopped canned oysters — closer to what we would now call a creamy oyster mayonnaise than to a green salad. The dressing is the whole of the work; the oysters are not cooked again.
- The eggsThe method says to whisk the eggs, but the ingredient list never names them. The companion cole slaw dressing in the same passage uses the yolks of two eggs in a broadly similar dressing, which is one reasonable reading; the original as printed does not state a quantity.
- Cove oystersCove oysters were small canned oysters; tin sizes varied. Modern canned oysters are the nearest equivalent. Drain them, chop, and do not simmer them — they are already cooked and will turn rubbery.
- Teacup measuresA teacup in this period is usually reckoned at around 6 fl oz, though the measure was not standard. On that reading 'half full' of cream is about 3 fl oz (a generous 1/3 cup) and 'a teacupful or less' of vinegar is up to about 3/4 cup. Start with half that vinegar and taste; vinegar strengths of the period varied.
- Made mustard"Made mustard" is prepared mustard paste, not dry powder — a plain smooth mustard is right. Dry English mustard in the same volume would be far sharper.
- The double boilerSetting the saucepan in a vessel of boiling water is a water bath, and it is the point of the recipe: over direct heat this quantity of yolk and vinegar will curdle. Stir constantly and pull it off as soon as it coats the whisk thickly.
- Pounded crackerCracker crushed to fine crumbs. They absorb liquid and stiffen the dressing as it cools, so add them sparingly and let the dressing stand a few minutes before judging the thickness.
- Assembly and yieldLetting the dressing cool before it meets the oysters will help keep them from toughening, though the original does not say so. The recipe gives no yield.
Canned "cove" oysters — the trade name for small oysters put up in tins, from Chesapeake and later Gulf packing houses — put shellfish on inland tables year round, and cookbooks of the period are full of ways to dress them. The salad here belongs to the older tradition of boiled dressing rather than mayonnaise: before reliable emulsified mayonnaise became a household staple, American cooks thickened egg yolks, vinegar, butter and cream over hot water into a tart custard. That the same dressing serves for oysters and for cabbage, as the surrounding pages show, is the real lesson of the section — one formula, adjusted with mustard and sugar, doing duty across several dishes.