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Oysters, Browned in Their Own Gravy
Take a dozen plump, juicy oysters of medium size. As they are opened, carefully pour the gravy into a cup. Beard the oysters, sprinkle a little pepper and salt over them, and dip each one separately into the yolk of an egg, which has been mixed smoothly with a tea-spoonful of flour. Brown them in a saucepan with a little clarified butter, lift them out, mix their gravy with the butter, and thicken it with half a tea-spoonful of flour. Simmer gently for two or three minutes, stir in the browned oysters, let them get hot, then serve them on toasted bread in a hot dish. Time, altogether, about a quarter of an hour. Probable cost, 1s. 6d. to 3s. per dozen. Sufficient for one or two persons.
A single-serving savoury from the era when oysters were cheap enough to fry a dozen for one person's supper. Everything hinges on speed once the oysters hit the fat.
- Do not cook them a quarter of an hourThe stated time covers opening, bearding, coating and sauce-making, not the cooking of the oysters themselves. In the pan they need 30 to 60 seconds a side to colour the egg coating, and only a few seconds to reheat in the sauce at the end; longer and they shrink and turn rubbery.
- BeardingThis means trimming away the dark frilled gill and any tough muscle at the hinge, leaving the plump body and skirt. It is worth doing with kitchen scissors rather than a knife.
- The gravy"Gravy" here is the oyster liquor released on shucking. Strain it through a fine sieve or muslin to catch shell grit, and taste before adding salt to the oysters, since the liquor is salty on its own.
- "Saucepan"The recipe says saucepan, but a small heavy frying pan or skillet gives better contact and a faster crust. Use a wide pan so the dozen oysters are not crowded and steaming.
- Clarified butterButter with the milk solids removed, so it can be taken hotter without burning. A tablespoon is enough; ghee can be used in its place, though it is more strongly flavoured.
- The coatingOne egg yolk beaten smooth with a teaspoon of flour makes a thick batter that clings; the oysters go in one at a time and straight into the fat. If the yolk seems stiff, loosen it with a teaspoon of the strained liquor rather than water.
- ThickeningHalf a teaspoon of flour into the buttery pan juices and liquor gives a thin coating sauce, not a gravy. Whisk it in off the heat to avoid lumps, then simmer two or three minutes to cook out the raw flour taste before the oysters go back in.
- Yield and costOne generous or two modest servings, as written. The price, 1s. 6d. to 3s. a dozen, is a reminder of how differently oysters were valued; scale up by the dozen per person and work in batches so the pan stays hot.
Cassell's belongs to the last decades of the cheap British oyster. Native beds in the Thames estuary, Essex and Whitstable supplied London in such volume through the nineteenth century that oysters were a working-class food, sold from street barrows and stretched into pies, sauces and stuffings; the collapse of the fishery through overdredging, pollution and disease in the late 1800s and early 1900s turned them into a luxury. That abundance explains the casual tone here, a dozen oysters treated as one person's supper dish on toast. The method itself, egg-and-flour coating, a quick browning in clarified butter, then a sauce built from the reserved liquor in the same pan, is a familiar handling of small delicate items in Victorian cookery.