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Oysters, Forcemeat of, for Boiled Fowls or Turkeys
Grate four ounces of the crumb of a stale loaf of bread very finely. Add half a tea-spoonful of salt, half a tea-spoonful of white pepper, half a tea-spoonful of pounded mace, a pinch of cayenne, two ounces of fresh butter, broken into small pieces (or if preferred, four ounces of finely-shredded beef-suet, though the forcemeat will not then be so delicate), the grated rind of half a small lemon, and a table-spoonful of chopped parsley. When these ingredients are thoroughly mixed, stir in a dozen plump oysters, which have been bearded and cut into small pieces, and bind the preparation together with the yolk of an egg and a little of the oyster liquid. If forcemeat balls are required, the mixture should be pounded in a mortar until reduced to a smooth paste. Oyster-sauce should always be served with oyster-forcemeat. Time, half an hour to prepare. Probable cost, 2s. Sufficient to stuff a large fowl.
A Victorian bread stuffing built around a dozen oysters, meant to go inside a boiled fowl or turkey and be served with oyster sauce. It works, with a few translations.
- Bearding the oysters"Bearded" means trimming off the dark frilly gill margin, which stays tough and stringy no matter how gently the bird is cooked. Reserve every drop of the liquor released while you do it — it is the binding liquid and the seasoning.
- Weights to volumeFour ounces of finely grated stale crumb is roughly 2 cups of loose fine crumbs; two ounces of butter is 4 tablespoons. Use a dense white loaf a day or two old, crusts off, not commercial packaged crumbs, which absorb too much and go pasty.
- Pounded maceMace is the outer covering of the nutmeg seed and is sold ground; half a teaspoon of ground mace is the equivalent. Nutmeg is close but sharper and sweeter — use a scant quarter teaspoon if that is all you have.
- Suet versus butterThe book is right that butter gives the more delicate result. Shredded beef suet, still sold frozen or shredded in Britain, makes a firmer, more savoury stuffing that holds its shape better in balls.
- Cooking temperatureStuffing packed inside a bird must reach 165F/74C at the centre, which usually means the bird itself runs past that. If you would rather not overcook the fowl, bake the forcemeat separately in a buttered dish, 350F for about 25 minutes, and let the oysters cook through there.
- Forcemeat ballsFor balls, a food processor does the mortar's work in seconds — pulse rather than run it, or the oysters turn to paste and grey the mixture. Roll walnut-sized, and poach in the fowl's cooking liquid or fry in butter for 4 to 5 minutes.
- Yield and costEnough for a 4 to 5 lb chicken; a turkey would need a larger quantity. The "probable cost, 2s" comes from a period when oysters were generally cheaper relative to other foods than they are now, though English prices had already risen considerably by the later nineteenth century as the beds were fished out.
Oysters as a stuffing ingredient belong to a long stretch of English and American cooking when they were abundant and cheap rather than a luxury — for much of the earlier nineteenth century London street sellers hawked them in quantity, and cookbooks used them freely to bulk out sauces, patties and forcemeats, though by the later decades of the century supplies and prices had shifted. Cassell's places this under boiled fowl and turkey because boiling was a common genteel treatment for a large white-fleshed bird, and a plain boiled fowl needs all the seasoning it can get: hence the mace, cayenne, lemon rind and parsley, and the instruction to serve oyster sauce alongside so the same flavour runs through the dish. "Forcemeat" is generally taken to derive from the French farce, stuffing (from farcir, to stuff), and by this period covered any bound, seasoned mixture used either as stuffing or rolled into balls as a garnish. The suet option in the recipe reflects the older and cheaper practice, and the preference for butter noted here is the more refined alternative.