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Veal with Oysters
Fry two pounds tender veal cut in thin bits, and dredged with flour, in sufficient hot lard to prevent sticking; when nearly done add one and a half pints of fine oysters, thicken with flour, season with salt and pepper, and cook until done. Serve hot in covered dish.
A two-pan-minute dish disguised as a stew. The only real difficulty is that the original tells you to cook the oysters "until done," which by modern standards is well past done.
- The hinge: oyster timingShucked oysters are finished when their edges ruffle and they plump, roughly one to two minutes in a hot pan. Held longer they shrink and turn rubbery, so add them at the very end and take the pan off the heat as soon as they curl.
- One and a half pints of oystersThat is about 3 cups of shucked oysters, sold today as two 12-oz containers, roughly 24 to 30 medium oysters. Buy them in their liquor and keep it.
- Where the gravy comes fromFlour dredge plus a spoonful more flour needs liquid to become sauce. The original names no liquid at all; the oysters' own liquor, perhaps half a cup from this quantity, is the likeliest source. Add it with the oysters and it will thicken almost immediately.
- "Tender veal cut in thin bits"Veal cutlets or scallopini pounded to about 1/4 inch, then cut into strips or squares. At that thickness they cook in two or three minutes a side; thicker chunks will still be tough when the oysters are ruined.
- LardUse lard if you have it, otherwise clarified butter or a neutral oil. "Sufficient to prevent sticking" means a film, two or three tablespoons in a wide skillet, not a fry-depth.
- Salt lastOyster liquor is saltier than most modern cooks expect. Season the veal lightly at the frying stage and correct only after the oysters and their liquor have gone in.
- Covered dishA lidded serving dish, warmed. The instruction is about heat retention at table, not further cooking, and the oysters will keep firming up if you leave it over a flame.
- YieldFour to six servings. Rice, mashed potato or toast points carry the gravy.
Buckeye Cookery came out of Ohio in the late 1870s, and the casual appearance of a pint and a half of oysters in a landlocked farm-town cookbook is the point of interest. By that decade the railroads had made barreled and canned Chesapeake and Gulf oysters cheap and ordinary across the interior, and American cooks put them into everything: turkey stuffing, patties, scalloped dishes, soups, and pairings with meat like this one. Veal and oysters together is an old European idea, often said to spring from the same impulse that produced steak and oyster pie in England, where the shellfish supplied salt, liquor and body to lean meat that has little fat of its own. The recipe's confidence about quantity, calling simply for "fine oysters," tells you how commonplace they were on a Midwestern table before overharvesting and pollution pushed prices out of reach in the following century.