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OYSTERS, FRIED (another way)
Open two dozen oysters, and simmer them for two minutes in their own liquor. Dry them in a cloth, beard them, and fry them with two ounces of butter, a table-spoonful of mushroom ketchup, a tea-spoonful of finely-minced parsley, and a tea-spoonful of chopped lemon-rind. When they are nicely browned, drain them on a cloth, and serve on a hot dish with fried potatoes, and toasted sippets round them. Time, six or seven minutes to fry. Probable cost, 1s. 6d. to 3s. per dozen. Sufficient for three or four persons.
A plain pan-fried oyster with no batter or crumb — the flavouring is all in the butter. The one thing to watch is the total cooking time, which the original overstates for oysters of the size sold today.
- The hinge: total heat, not the stated six minutesThe oysters have already been poached for two minutes in their liquor, so they are effectively cooked before they reach the pan. A further six or seven minutes will shrink and toughen them; give them a minute or two in foaming butter, just long enough to colour the edges.
- BeardingTo beard is to trim off the dark frill of gill tissue around the oyster's edge. It is easily pinched away with the fingers once the oyster has firmed in its liquor. Modern cooks often skip it; it is harmless to eat but chewy and it holds grit.
- Their own liquorThe liquid released when the shells are opened. Strain it through muslin or a fine sieve before heating, since shell fragments are almost inevitable. Two dozen oysters yield only a modest quantity, so use a small pan.
- Mushroom ketchupA thin, dark, salty mushroom-and-spice liquid, nothing like tomato ketchup. It is still sold by British specialists; a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce plus a splash of soy is the nearest common substitute, though both are sharper. Add it toward the end so it does not scorch in the butter.
- SippetsSmall triangles or fingers of bread fried or toasted until crisp, arranged around the edge of the dish. They exist to soak up the buttery pan juices.
- Chopped lemon-rindZest only — pare it thinly with a peeler and mince it, or the pith turns bitter in hot butter. A teaspoon is roughly the zest of half a lemon.
- Two ounces of butterAbout 55 g, or half a stick. That is generous for two dozen oysters and is meant to become the sauce; do not let it brown past nut-colour before the oysters go in.
- Cost and quantityThe "1s. 6d. to 3s. per dozen" is a Victorian price and tells you only that oysters had already ceased to be cheap by the time this was printed. Two dozen shucked oysters is roughly 300–450 g of meat, and the stated three or four servings is right for a first course.
Cassell's gives several fried-oyster methods, and this is the unbattered one: no egg, no crumb, just butter and seasoning in the pan. The combination of mushroom ketchup, parsley and lemon rind is thoroughly nineteenth-century English — mushroom ketchup was the everyday savoury bottle of the Victorian storecupboard, predating the near-universal spread of tomato sauce. The recipe also catches oysters at a turning point. For most of the century they had been cheap enough to pad out steak pies and be sold from street barrows, but overfishing and disease in the native beds pushed prices up steadily from the 1860s onward, and by the time this dictionary was compiled they had become markedly dearer. Serving them with fried potatoes and toasted sippets, in the manner of a small hot entrée rather than a bulk ingredient, belongs to that later and more expensive phase.