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Oysters, Fricasseed
Cut two ounces of lean ham into dice, and put them into a stewpan with two ounces of fresh butter, a bunch of parsley, a sprig of thyme, a sliced onion, an inch of thin lemon-rind, and two cloves. Place the cover on the pan, and let the contents steam gently for ten minutes. Pour over them half a pint of stock or gravy thickened with a spoonful of flour, and simmer for twenty minutes. Add two dozen oysters, and when they are quite hot, draw the saucepan to the side of the fire for a minute or two to cool, then stir in gradually the yolk of an egg, beaten up with a table-spoonful of cream. Simmer again for a minute, and serve the oysters on a hot dish, with the sauce strained and poured over them. A tea-spoonful of lemon-juice may be added or not. Probable cost of oysters, from 1s. 6d. to 3s. per dozen. Sufficient for three or four persons.
A Victorian white fricassee built on a ham-and-herb infusion, finished with an egg-and-cream liaison. Two things decide whether it works: how long the oysters spend in the pan, and whether the sauce is allowed to boil after the yolk goes in.
- The oysters need barely a minute"When they are quite hot" is the whole instruction, and it is the right one. Oysters plump and firm within 60-90 seconds in hot liquid; beyond that they shrink and turn to rubber. Add them off the strongest heat and count in seconds, not minutes.
- The liaison must not boilOnce the egg yolk and cream go in, the sauce holds together only below a simmer, roughly 160-175F. The recipe's instruction to draw the pan aside first is not a nicety. If it boils, the yolk scrambles and the sauce curdles past rescue.
- Imperial half pintHalf an imperial pint is 10 fl oz, about 1 1/4 US cups of stock. "A spoonful of flour" is unspecified; the book uses "table-spoonful" elsewhere in this recipe, so it may be smaller. The recipe has the flour already in the stock, but working it into the butter and ham fat before the liquid goes in avoids lumps.
- Two dozen oystersShucked oysters of a decent size, with their liquor. Strain the liquor and add it to the stock; it carries much of the flavour, though the recipe as written does not call for it.
- StewpanA lidded pan with straight sides, deeper than a frying pan; a modern saucepan, sauté pan or small braiser will do. The ten-minute covered stage is a gentle sweat, not a fry; the ham and aromatics should soften without colouring.
- Tie the aromaticsParsley, thyme, onion, lemon rind and cloves all get strained out at the end. Bundling them in muslin or tying the herbs makes the final straining, which is done around the fragile oysters, much less awkward.
- Lemon rind and clovesAn inch of pared rind means zest only, no white pith, or the sauce turns bitter over the half hour of infusion. Two whole cloves is assertive in this quantity of sauce; one is safer if you dislike them.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives three or four persons. It wants something to catch the sauce -- toast, a pastry case, or plain rice.
- The price noteThe book gives 1s. 6d. to 3s. a dozen, which is not a trivial sum for the period. Costed against modern oysters this is an expensive dish, which is worth knowing before you buy two dozen.
Fricassee in the Victorian sense meant a white stew finished with an egg-yolk liaison — a French method that English cookery had absorbed thoroughly by the nineteenth century. The oyster's presence here is a matter of economics: through most of the 1800s British oyster beds, particularly in Essex and Kent, yielded such quantities that oysters were a food of the poor as much as the rich, turning up in pies, sausages and stuffings as a cheap way to stretch meat. The ham, herbs and cloves in this recipe are doing exactly that job in reverse, lending savour and body to a shellfish that cost pennies. By the end of the century overfishing and disease had begun to collapse the beds, though what the price range quoted here — up to three shillings a dozen — tells us about that shift is harder to say.