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Oysters and Mushrooms
A solid pint or 1 dozen medium-sized oysters; 1 cup mushrooms cut in rather small pieces; 2 tablespoonfuls butter; a little salt, pepper, and a dash of nutmeg; half a glassful port wine or madeira.
Saute the mushrooms in the butter. Boil and skim the liquor from the oysters, put in the oysters with the salt, pepper, and nutmeg, and cook until they are nearly done. Add the sauted mushrooms and cook for a few minutes longer, then add the wine; let all get thoroughly hot, and serve at once. The wine may be omitted and a tablespoonful of lemon juice added.
For a variety these may be served in cups of rolls or pastry. Take rolls that are baked in round or long oval shape, cut off the bottom crust, scoop out the inside, brush the sides with butter, and crisp them in the oven. Fill these with the oysters and mushrooms. Serve on a hot platter with the sauce poured over them. Two tablespoonfuls of hot cream may be added to the sauce, instead of wine.
Or make shells of good pastry, baked in little patty-pans. These may be made the day beforehand and put in the oven for a few minutes to get hot, while the oysters are being prepared. A good lunch dish.
A quick sauté that lives or dies by how long the oysters stay on the heat. Everything else can be prepared ahead.
- Cook the oysters two minutes, not moreShucked oysters are done the moment their edges ruffle and they firm slightly, roughly 1 to 2 minutes in the simmering liquor. "Nearly done," then a few minutes more with the mushrooms, will give you rubber; add the mushrooms almost immediately and pull the pan off the heat.
- A solid pintThis means a pint of shucked oyster meats measured without their liquor, about 16 fl oz drained. A pint of mediums usually runs to somewhere between a dozen and sixteen oysters, so the recipe's dozen is in the expected range; buy by the pint rather than the count.
- Half a glassful of wineA wine glass of the period held about 2 fl oz, so this is roughly 2 tablespoons of port or madeira. Use a tawny port or a dry-ish madeira such as Sercial; a sweet cream sherry works if that is what is open.
- Skimming the liquorStrain the oyster liquor through a fine sieve or coffee filter first to catch shell grit, then bring it to a bare simmer and lift off the grey foam. Do not let it boil hard or it turns cloudy and salty.
- MushroomsA cup of chopped mushrooms is roughly 3 oz. Cook them in the butter over fairly high heat until the water has driven off and they begin to brown, or they will thin the sauce when they go back in.
- Salt with careOyster liquor is already saline and reduces further in the pan. Season at the end, after the wine or cream has gone in.
- Crisping the roll casesThe recipe gives no temperature, only 'crisp them in the oven.' A moderate oven, around 350F, for 8 to 10 minutes will dry the hollowed, buttered rolls to a pale gold; pastry cases baked the day before need only a few minutes at the same heat to warm through.
- YieldAs written it serves two generously or three as a light lunch course. In roll or pastry cases, count on four small servings.
Oysters were the cheap protein of nineteenth-century American cities, sold by the barrel and the bushel and eaten in quantities that now read as extravagant, which is why compilations of this kind devote whole sections to them. Hollowed rolls and small pastry cases were familiar lunch-dish vessels of the period, of a piece with the patty shell that carried creamed seafood well into the twentieth century. Note also that the recipe offers wine, lemon juice or cream as interchangeable finishes, a habit of household manuals written for cooks who might have any one of the three to hand.