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Oysters, Scalloped
Scalloped oysters ought properly to be pre-served in scallops of silver or earthenware; but when these are not at hand, a small dish will answer the purpose, or the deep shells of the oysters, which have been thoroughly cleansed. Oysters dressed in this way should be small, plump, and juicy; large, coarse oysters would not be at all nice. Open and beard two dozen oysters, and cut each one into halves. Dissolve two ounces of butter in a stewpan, mix it smoothly with two ounces of flour, the strained oyster-liquor, and a quarter of a pint of milk or cream. Add half a tea-spoonful of anchovy, a pinch of cayenne, and a grate or two of nutmeg, and stir the sauce over the fire till smooth and thick. Let it cool for a minute, then mix in the well-beaten yolks of two eggs, a table-spoonful of finely-chopped parsley, a tea-spoonful of lemon-juice, and the oysters. Keep stirring over a gentle fire for four or five minutes, then put the mixture in the shells, cover them thickly with finely-grated bread-crumbs, moisten with clarified butter, place them in a Dutch oven before a clear fire, and let them remain until they are equally and lightly browned. Serve very hot. Time, altogether, half an hour. Probable cost of oysters, 1s. 6d. to 3s. per dozen. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A Victorian oyster gratin built on a thick velouté rather than the American cracker-crumb casserole of the same name. The whole difficulty is heat control: the oysters and the egg yolks both punish a hard boil.
- The hinge: gentle heat after the yolks go inOnce the beaten yolks and the oysters are stirred into the sauce, it must not simmer. Above roughly 180F the yolks scramble and the oysters shrink and toughen. Four to five minutes over the lowest heat is enough to set the sauce; the oysters finish under the browning heat.
- "A quarter of a pint"An imperial quarter-pint is 5 fl oz, so a generous half cup of milk or cream. Two ounces each of butter and flour to that much liquid plus the oyster liquor gives a thick binding sauce; how stiff depends on how much liquor the oysters yield, and it needs to be thick enough to sit in the shell.
- "Half a tea-spoonful of anchovy"This means anchovy essence, the bottled seasoning of the period. Anchovy paste is the closest modern stand-in; a mashed salted fillet also works, but hold back on added salt since the oyster liquor is already saline.
- BeardingThe beard is the dark frilled gill along the edge of the shucked oyster. Trim it with scissors and strain the liquor through a fine sieve or muslin, since shell grit always comes with it.
- A Dutch oven before the fireNot the cast-iron pot. A Victorian Dutch oven was an open-fronted tin reflector set facing the coals, browning the surface by radiant heat. Use a broiler a few inches from the element, or a hot oven, and watch it -- the crumbs colour fast.
- Shells and dishesDeep shells must be thoroughly cleansed before filling, as the recipe specifies; silver or earthenware scallop dishes were the polite version. Small ramekins are the practical substitute.
- Choosing oystersThe instruction to use small, plump, juicy oysters still holds; the recipe says only that large, coarse ones "would not be at all nice", and directs that all the oysters be cut into halves.
- YieldFour to five persons, as stated. The 1s. 6d. to 3s. per dozen is later-nineteenth-century pricing; at those figures the two dozen called for here was not a trivial outlay.
Scalloped dishes take their name from the shell — the coquille — that served as the baking vessel, and by the nineteenth century the word had drifted to mean almost any mixture crumbed and browned in a small dish, whether a shell was involved or not. Cassell's gives the dish among its many oyster preparations, drawing on the native beds of Essex and Kent that supplied London, and oysters appeared in pies, sauces, stuffings and stews. The heavy flour-and-butter binding with egg yolks, anchovy essence and nutmeg is characteristically Victorian, and marks the dish off from the American scalloped oyster, which layers the shellfish with cracker crumbs and cream instead. Overfishing and disease later in the century, together with the cold winters of the 1890s, thinned the native beds badly, and prices like the 1s. 6d. a dozen quoted here did not survive the change.