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Oysters, Soup of, Rich
Take three dozen oysters; beard them, and let the beards boil for a few minutes in two pints of fish stock. Pound half the oysters in a mortar with the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, an ounce of fresh butter, a salt-spoonful of salt, a salt-spoonful of white pepper, and a tea-spoonful of lemon-juice. Strain the stock, stir the pounded mixture into it, add the oyster liquor, and simmer all together for half an hour. Add a little more salt and pepper, if necessary, and a pinch of cayenne, together with the rest of the oysters, and the yolks of two un-boiled eggs, which have been well beaten. The soup must not boil after the oysters and raw eggs are added: it must be stirred by the side of the fire until it is thick and smooth, and then poured into a tureen, and served very hot. Time, one hour. Probable cost, 5s. Sufficient for six or seven persons.
A thickened oyster soup in the older English style, bound with pounded oyster meat and egg yolk rather than flour or cream. The whole thing hinges on heat control at the end.
- Never let it boil after the eggs go inThe raw yolks are the only thickener at that stage, and they will scramble into grains at around 180F. Pull the pan to low heat, stir constantly, and stop as soon as the soup coats the spoon.
- The oysters at the end need two minutes, not moreThe oysters at the end are only being warmed through -- The recipe gives no time for this stage; the final dozen and a half go into liquid that is already hot. Held too long they shrink and toughen, which defeats the point of using thirty-six of them.
- BeardingThe beard is the dark, frilly gill margin. Trim it off, but keep it: simmered in the stock for a few minutes it gives most of the marine depth here. Strain it out before the pounded mixture goes in, as instructed.
- Oyster liquorShuck over a bowl and save every drop of the liquid in the shells. If you buy shucked oysters in a tub, the packing liquor counts. Strain it through a fine sieve for grit.
- Salt-spoonfulA salt-spoon is roughly a quarter teaspoon. Season lightly at first; oyster liquor and fish stock are both salty, and this soup reduces for half an hour.
- The mortarA food processor does the pounding in seconds. Blitz half the oysters with the hard-boiled yolks, butter and seasoning to a smooth paste, then whisk it into the strained stock so it disperses rather than clumping.
- "By the side of the fire"On a coal range this meant the cooler edge of the hob, off direct heat. Translate as the lowest gas setting, or a bowl over barely simmering water if you are cautious.
- Yield and costSix to seven servings, as stated. The 5s given was a substantial sum for a household soup.
Cassell's belonged to the era when oysters were still a common British ingredient, though the 5s costing here suggests they were no longer cheap; Thames and Essex beds were under heavy pressure in the later nineteenth century from overfishing, pollution and stock losses. The method is pre-modern in its logic: no roux, no cream, the body coming instead from pounded flesh and egg yolks, a technique with precedent in older English and French practice where a sieved paste of meat or fish did work a starch later took over. The doubling of yolks -- two hard-boiled for the paste, two raw for the finish -- and the repeated warning against boiling show the authors knew how easily the binding could be ruined.