Home › The Principles of Cookery › Oysters, Devilled
Oysters, Devilled
When the oysters are opened (choose large ones), retain them and their liquor in the deep shell. Sprinkle with cayenne pepper to taste, and put the shells on a gridiron, with a bit of butter on the top of each oyster. If the fire be clear and bright, from three to four minutes will do them. Send to table on a napkin, with bread and butter as an accompaniment. Probable cost, 1s. 6d. to 1s. 9d. per dozen.
A three-ingredient dish where nearly everything depends on heat and timing. The instruction that matters is the one about a clear, bright fire: the oysters must cook fast in their own liquor, not stew slowly in it.
- The gridiron, translatedA gridiron sat directly over glowing coals with no flame or smoke. The nearest modern equivalents are a very hot grill (broiler) with the shells 3-4 inches from the element, or a charcoal grill once the coals have burned to grey ash. A dull fire steams the oysters and toughens them.
- TimingThree to four minutes is right for large oysters over fierce heat, and it is a ceiling rather than a target. They are done the moment the edges ruffle and the liquor bubbles at the rim of the shell; another minute turns them to rubber.
- Keeping the liquor"Retain them and their liquor in the deep shell" is the whole method. Shuck over a bowl, cut the muscle free from the shell, and tip any spilled liquor back in. Without it the oyster cooks dry.
- Balancing the shellsDeep oyster shells rock. A bed of coarse salt, crumpled foil or damp sand in a tray holds them level so nothing pours out.
- "Devilled" here means cayenne aloneOther devilled oyster recipes add mustard, Worcestershire, anchovy or breadcrumbs. This version is the austere one: cayenne and butter, with the recipe specifying only "a bit of butter" on each oyster and cayenne "to taste".
- Quantity and servingThe costing is per dozen, and a dozen large oysters is one substantial first course or a light supper for two. The book does not say why the napkin is specified, though it does keep hot shells from sliding on the platter.
- Cost, decoded1s. 6d. to 1s. 9d. is eighteen to twenty-one old pence per dozen "large" oysters.
- SourcingBuy live oysters with tightly closed shells, keep them cupped side down under a damp cloth in the fridge, and discard any that gape and will not shut when tapped. Briefly grilled oysters are lightly cooked rather than fully cooked through, which is worth knowing if you are feeding anyone pregnant, elderly or immunocompromised.
Devilling — dosing a food with cayenne, mustard or other fierce seasoning and applying direct heat — was a fixture of British cookery from the Regency onward, and the term is generally traced to the late eighteenth century, when "devilled" bones, kidneys and biscuits were standard supper and sideboard fare. Oysters fit the pattern because they were then abundant and cheap: nineteenth-century Britain harvested them in enormous quantities, and they turned up in pies, sausages, beefsteak puddings and as a bar snack long before they became a luxury. The collapse of the native beds through overfishing and pollution later in the century is what changed the arithmetic behind that casual per-dozen price.