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Pigs in Blanket
Cut very thin slices of bacon, drain one pint of large oysters, wrap each oyster inside a slice of bacon, fasten together with toothpicks and broil.
— Mrs. Eugene A. Chilson
A two-line recipe that depends entirely on timing: the bacon must crisp before the oysters shrink. Everything else is preparation.
- The hinge: bacon and oyster cook at different ratesBroiled from raw, thin bacon needs roughly 6-8 minutes to render, while an oyster is done in 2-3 and turns rubbery after that. Lay the bacon out and cook it partway first, until the fat is translucent but the strip is still limp enough to wrap, then finish the wrapped oysters under high heat for a couple of minutes a side.
- A pint of oystersShucked oysters are still sold by liquid volume. Counts vary by grade: a pint of the largest grades runs roughly 20-26, while smaller 'selects' give appreciably more, so a pint may yield around two dozen pieces or more — an appetizer for six to eight.
- Drain, then dryDraining is not enough. Blot the oysters on paper towels or the liquor will steam the bacon and keep it flabby.
- Bacon thicknessThe recipe asks for very thin slices. Ask for a thin cut, or stretch each strip with the back of a knife; a half-strip wraps one oyster with a small overlap.
- "Broil" then and nowThe original most likely means a wire broiler over live coals, cooked on both sides, though range broilers were in use by this period. Under a gas or electric broiler, use the top rack at high heat on a slotted or rack-lined pan so the rendering fat drains away and does not catch.
- ToothpicksSoak wooden picks in water 10 minutes or they will scorch and snap under a broiler. Metal skewers threaded with four or five at a time are easier to turn.
- DonenessThe oysters are ready when the edges have just ruffled and firmed. Serve at once, on toast points or plain, with lemon.
"Pigs in blankets" meant this dish long before it meant a sausage in pastry — through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries American cookbooks and hotel menus often used the name for oysters, or occasionally chicken livers, wrapped in bacon and broiled, though other bacon-wrapped fillings such as dates and prunes carried names of this kind too. Angels on horseback, the near-identical English version, is generally traced to the same period and served on toast. It is a reminder of how far barreled and canned oysters traveled inland by rail: cheap, plentiful oysters turned up in soups, stews, patties and pickles throughout books like this one. The dish survived as a cocktail-hour standard well into the mid-twentieth century, by which time the name had also attached to sausage rolls.