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Oysters, Soup Of
Scald two dozen oysters in their own liquor; beard them, cut them into halves, and put them into a soup tureen. Place the beards into a stewpan with a pint of white stock or milk, and the oyster liquor; let them boil for a quarter of an hour, then strain the liquid, let it stand a few minutes, and before using pour it gently away from the sediment which will have settled at the bottom of the vessel. Dissolve two ounces of butter in a stewpan, mix two ounces of flour smoothly with it, add the stock in which the beards were boiled, and half a pint of thick cream. Season the soup with a pinch of cayenne, a little grated nutmeg, and a tea-spoonful of anchovy, and stir it over a gentle fire for a quarter of an hour. Pour it upon the oysters in the tureen, and serve immediately. If preferred, milk may be used instead of cream in making this soup. Probable cost, 4s. 6d. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A Victorian cream oyster soup that gets its depth from a stock made of the discarded oyster beards. The hinge is that the oysters themselves are barely cooked: they are scalded, set in the tureen, and the finished soup is poured over them at the last moment.
- Do not cook the oysters twiceScald means bringing them just to the point where the edges ruffle in their own liquor, about a minute, then lifting them straight out. The heat of the poured soup finishes them. Any longer and they tighten into rubber.
- BeardsThe dark frilly gill and mantle trim around the edge of the oyster. Modern shucked oysters are often sold already trimmed; if so, use a well-flavoured fish stock or bottled clam juice with the oyster liquor in place of the beard infusion.
- Straining the liquorOyster liquor carries grit and shell fragments. The instruction to let it settle and decant off the sediment is worth following even with jarred oysters; a coffee filter or a doubled muslin does the same job faster.
- QuantitiesA pint here is the imperial pint, 20 fl oz, so about 2 1/2 US cups of stock or milk. Half a pint of cream is roughly 1 1/4 US cups. Two dozen oysters for four or five people is a light serving by modern standards.
- The rouxTwo ounces butter to two ounces flour into roughly 2 1/2 cups of liquid plus cream gives a thick, coating soup rather than a thin one. Cut the flour to one ounce if you want something you can drink from a cup.
- A teaspoonful of anchovyThe recipe does not specify the form; in books of this period it usually means anchovy essence, a thin bottled sauce. Anchovy paste or a mashed salted fillet can substitute, using less, as they are generally more concentrated and saltier.
- SaltThe original gives no salt. The oyster liquor and the anchovy will supply some. Taste at the end rather than seasoning early.
- Stirring a quarter of an hourFifteen minutes over gentle heat is to cook out the raw flour, not to reduce. Keep it well below a boil once the cream is in, and stir the base of the pan.
Oyster soups and stews run through nineteenth-century British and American cookery because oysters were then relatively cheap and plentiful, and were shipped inland by rail in barrels; the book's offer of milk in place of the half-pint of thick cream may reflect the cost of the cream. Cassell's costing of 4s 6d was not a trivial sum for a soup for four or five persons. The trick of simmering the beards for stock and reserving the oyster bodies for a brief final warming reflects a frugality about trimmings that much modern shellfish cookery has abandoned along with the beards themselves. Over-fishing of native oyster beds in the decades that followed turned the oyster from a common food into a luxury, which is why recipes of this scale can read oddly lavish now.