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Fried Oysters
Drain, pick them over, dust with salt and pepper, roll in cracker crumbs, then in egg, in cracker crumbs again, and saute in hot butter until both sides are a golden brown.
Or fry in deep, hot fat after preparing as above.
A bare-bones nineteenth-century method that still works, provided the oysters are dry before they meet the crumbs and they leave the fat the moment the coating colours.
- Dry them firstDraining is not enough — blot the oysters on a towel until the surface is matte. Wet oysters shed their breading in the pan, and the liquor that runs out will drop the fat temperature and spatter.
- Cracker crumbsPeriod recipes generally mean plain soda or water crackers, crushed fine and sieved. Saltine crumbs are the closest supermarket equivalent; use a little less added salt if you go that route. Panko browns faster and gives a lighter, less dense crust.
- The double coatingCrumb, egg, crumb gives the egg a dry layer to grip. Beat the egg with a spoonful of water or milk so it flows rather than clings in ropes.
- Fat temperatureFor deep frying, 375F. Lower than that and the oysters absorb fat before the crust sets; hotter and the crumbs darken before the inside is hot.
- Butter for the sautéWhole butter scorches at frying heat. Use clarified butter, or half butter and half a neutral oil, and keep the pan hot enough that the coating sizzles on contact.
- Timing is the hingeTwo minutes at most, turning once — pull them as soon as the crust is golden. Oysters cooked past the point where the edges ruffle turn firm and rubbery, and no amount of sauce recovers them.
- Quantity and yieldThe original gives no count. Reckon on a pint of shucked oysters — the number varies with size, but two dozen or so — to serve three or four as a first course. Fry in batches so the fat does not cool.
- ServingThey go slack within minutes. Drain briefly on a rack rather than paper, and send them out at once with lemon, tartar sauce, or a horseradish-and-ketchup sauce.
Fried oysters were everyday food in nineteenth-century America rather than a luxury: rail and barrel shipping put Chesapeake and Long Island Sound oysters into inland cities cheaply, and oyster saloons, cellars and street stands sold them by the plate. The cracker-crumb coating reflects that world — crackers were a pantry staple and easy to reduce to an even crumb, and they fry drier and crisper than bread. The recipe's casual alternative between sautéing in butter and deep frying is typical of the compiled household books of the era, which assumed the cook knew her own stove. The great American oyster beds were fished hard through this period, and Chesapeake yields collapsed in the twentieth century.