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OYSTERS (au Gratin)
Put six ounces of macaroni into a stewpan with three pints of boiling water. Season with a pinch of salt and two pinches of pepper, and simmer for twenty minutes. Drain the macaroni, put it back into the saucepan with half a pint of good gravy, and let it stew until the macaroni is tender and the gravy absorbed. Turn it out, chop it small, and put it again into the stewpan with a dozen or more of oysters, cut into small pieces, two ounces of grated Parmesan, one ounce of butter, a pinch of cayenne, and as much milk or gravy as will moisten it. Shake the saucepan over the fire until the cheese is melted, then pile the macaroni high in a dish, sprinkle over it an ounce of grated Parmesan and a dessert-spoonful of browned bread-crumbs, pour over half an ounce of clarified butter, and brown the mixture in a gentle oven, or before the fire. Serve very hot. Time, altogether, two hours. Probable cost, 2s. 6d. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A late-Victorian macaroni gratin in which the oysters are a seasoning rather than the centrepiece. The whole thing hangs on how briefly the oysters are in contact with heat.
- Oysters go in last and barely cookOysters go in last -- The oysters are added at the final stage, cut small, and the recipe has them shaken over the fire until the cheese melts before the dish is browned. Oysters held over direct heat for more than a couple of minutes turn tough and weep liquid that thins the dish, so keep that stage as brief as possible.
- Macaroni of the periodVictorian macaroni was long hollow tubes, sold in lengths and much thicker than today's elbows. Any short tubular pasta works; 6 oz is about 170 g dry, and 20 minutes of simmering assumes the older, denser product. Modern dried pasta will be done in 8-11 minutes, so cook to just under al dente since it then stews in gravy.
- "Good gravy"Most likely a well-reduced brown meat stock rather than a thickened pan gravy. Half a pint is 10 fl oz (about 285 ml) in British measure; use a well-flavoured beef or veal stock, reduced if it tastes thin, since the pasta absorbs all of it and takes its flavour from it.
- Chopping the macaroniChopping the cooked, gravy-soaked pasta small is what lets it "pile high" in the dish rather than slump. Skip it and you get a loose casserole instead of the intended mound.
- A gentle ovenA slow to moderate oven, roughly 300-325F (150-160C), long enough to melt the top cheese and colour the crumbs. "Before the fire" means propping the dish in front of the open fire; a hot grill for 2-3 minutes achieves the same colouring and is kinder to the oysters.
- Cheese and saltTwo ounces of Parmesan in the mixture plus another ounce on top, with oyster liquor and reduced stock, makes for a salty dish. Season the pasta water lightly and taste before adding any more salt at the end.
- Clarified butterHalf an ounce (about 15 g) of butter with the milk solids removed, poured over the crumbs so they fry rather than scorch. Melted butter skimmed of foam does the job.
- Time and yieldThe recipe allows two hours altogether; the active work is much shorter, and 45 minutes is realistic today. It serves five or six as a savoury course, or three or four as a modern main.
Cassell's places this among a long run of oyster dishes because oysters were still cheap in Britain when the book was compiled - dredged in vast quantities from Kent, Essex and the Solent, and eaten by working households as well as at supper tables. The pairing with macaroni and Parmesan belongs to the English taste for Italian pasta as a rich baked "savoury" rather than a first course, a habit generally traced to the eighteenth-century macaroni pies of the gentry table and still visible here in the browned crumb top and the pile served "very hot." By the end of the century over-dredging and disease outbreaks had begun pushing oyster prices up, and within a generation dishes that stretched a dozen oysters through a few ounces of macaroni would look like thrift rather than economy of habit.