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Oysters, Sauce of, Mock
Cut three anchovies into small pieces, and put them into a stewpan with a quarter of a pint of water, half a blade of mace, half a dozen peppercorns, and two cloves. Simmer very gently until the anchovies are dissolved, then strain the liquor, thicken it with a little flour and butter, and mix with it enough milk or cream to make up half a pint. Serve very hot. Or, stir a tea-spoonful of anchovy essence into half a pint of white sauce; season with pepper and nutmeg, and serve hot. Time, half an hour. Probable cost, 6d. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A thrifty stand-in for oyster sauce, meant to go with boiled fowl, cod or a plain steamed pudding of fish. The point is anchovy standing in for the briny sweetness of oyster liquor, so the seasoning balance matters more than the technique.
- Imperial measuresA quarter of a pint here is 5 imperial fluid ounces, about 150 ml or a scant ⅔ US cup. Half a pint is 10 fl oz, roughly 1¼ US cups — a modest quantity that saucing five or six plates assumes light napping, not pooling.
- The anchoviesVictorian cooks bought whole salted anchovies from the barrel, bones and all, which is why they "dissolve". Salt-packed anchovies rinsed of their crust behave the same way; oil-packed fillets will break down but bring less of the cure. Three fish is roughly six fillets.
- SaltNo salt appears in the recipe because the anchovies supply it all. Taste before adding any, particularly if the sauce is going over something already seasoned.
- Mace and clovesA blade of mace is one flattened piece of the aril around the nutmeg, not ground mace; half a blade is a light touch. Two cloves in 5 fl oz is assertive — strain promptly rather than letting the spices sit in the liquor.
- Thickening"A little flour and butter" is not specified further: it can be worked cold into a beurre manié and whisked into the simmering liquor in small pieces, or cooked first as a roux. About 15 g of each would bring the finished half pint to a coating consistency.
- Do not boil after the creamOnce the milk or cream goes in, hold the sauce below a simmer. A salty, acidic anchovy base will curdle milk readily if pushed to a boil, and reheating aggressively does the same thing.
- Anchovy essenceThe second method relies on a bottled anchovy essence that is now hard to find outside Britain. Anchovy paste thinned with a little water is the closest substitute; Worcestershire sauce is a rougher approximation, bringing tamarind and vinegar as well as anchovy. Add it off the heat at the end.
- Timing and yieldHalf an hour is generous — fifteen minutes of gentle simmering will dissolve the fish. The finished half pint dresses five or six portions of poached white fish or boiled chicken.
Mock sauces fill pages of Victorian cookery books because the real article was seasonal, perishable or dear, and oysters had begun their long slide from cheap to costly over the nineteenth century as the English beds were fished out. Anchovy was a standard understudy for anything marine: salted anchovies kept for months, and bottled anchovy essence and anchovy butter were fixtures of the Victorian store cupboard. Cassell's gives the probable cost as sixpence, which places the sauce squarely in the economical range the dictionary aimed at — a household that could not run to a barrel of oysters could still put something oyster-flavoured beside the boiled cod. The two versions offered, one built from scratch and one stirred together from bottled essence and ready-made white sauce, are characteristic of the book's approach: a method for the cook with time and a shortcut for the cook without.