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Broiled Oysters on Toast
Select large fine oysters. Strain off the liquor and dry on a napkin. Butter the broiler and lay the oysters on it. Dust them with salt and pepper, and broil over a hot fire, turning the broiler so that both sides of the oyster shall be cooked. Have ready on a hot platter squares or rounds of buttered toast; place one or two oysters on each piece, put a bit of butter on top, squeeze a few drops of lemon juice over, and serve at once, garnished with cress.
The cooking and serving must be done quickly, with no loss of time for cooling.
A plain nineteenth-century supper dish that lives or dies on speed. Everything should be ready before the oysters touch heat.
- The hinge: seconds, not minutesShucked oysters are done the moment the edges ruffle and firm, roughly a minute a side over high heat. Held longer they tighten into rubber and weep out their liquor.
- Dry them properlyDraining and blotting is not fussiness. Wet oysters steam rather than sear, and will never take colour on a broiler.
- "Broiler" here means a gridThe original assumes a hinged wire broiler held over live coals, turned to cook both faces. A stovetop grill pan or cast-iron skillet, very hot, gives the same result; under a modern overhead broiler set as high as it goes there is no need to turn them.
- Butter the grid, not the oystersA film of butter on hot metal keeps them from sticking and tearing. Oil works as well and smokes less.
- Reserve the liquorStrained oyster liquor is worth keeping for a stew or sauce rather than pouring away, though it plays no part in this dish.
- CressThe garnish is watercress or garden cress, peppery and raw. Any sharp small leaf serves the same purpose against the butter and lemon.
- Yield and timingThe recipe gives no quantities. At the stated rate of one or two oysters per piece of toast, six to eight oysters per person as a first course would need four to eight small toasts. Toast the bread and warm the platter first; the oysters will not wait.
- Oyster qualityThe recipe asks only for 'large fine oysters'. Buy shucked oysters from a fishmonger who can say when they were opened, or shuck them yourself the same day. In modern trade terms the larger shucked grades suit broiling better than small ones, which overcook before they brown.
Oysters were cheap, abundant and eaten in enormous quantity in American and British cities through the nineteenth century, which is why compilations of this era give them a section of their own and many preparations -- fried in batter, stewed in milk, scalloped, pickled, or, as here, simply broiled. Broiled oysters on toast belongs to the family of light savoury dishes served at supper, luncheon or as an early course at dinner, in the same slot as Welsh rabbit or devilled kidneys. The insistence on speed and a hot platter reflects the short distance a dish of this kind could travel before it spoiled.