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Scalloped Oysters
1 pint solid oysters; 1 large cupful bread or cracker crumbs; 1/3 cup butter; 1 cup milk; salt and pepper.
Drain and carefully pick over the oysters to free them from any bits of shell. Mix the crumbs with the melted butter. (Bread crumbs are preferable to cracker, being less solid when baked.) Scald and skim the oyster liquor, and add the hot milk.
Into a well-buttered baking-dish put a thin layer of the buttered crumbs, next a layer of oysters; season with salt and pepper, cover with a layer of crumbs, and pour over some of the hot oyster liquor and milk. Put in another layer of oysters and seasoning, then cover with the remaining crumbs, having the top layer of crumbs rather thicker than the other. Add the rest of the hot liquor, dot the top with bits of butter, and bake twenty minutes in a hot oven. A very little Worcestershire sauce or lemon juice may be added to the seasoning if liked.
A late-Victorian standard that still works exactly as written, provided the oven is genuinely hot and the dish comes out the moment the custardy liquor sets.
- Oven heatThe recipe gives no temperature; "hot oven" in period sources is generally taken to mean somewhere around 400-450F. Twenty minutes at that heat should set the milk and liquor and brown the top; a cooler oven leaves the middle soupy and toughens the oysters while you wait.
- A pint of solid oysters"Solid" means drained meats, not oysters measured in their liquor. A pint runs to about a pound, somewhere in the region of 16 to 24 medium shucked oysters depending on size. Oysters sold in tubs are usually packed in their liquor, so drain them and keep what comes off.
- Don't lose the liquorReserve everything you drain off. Scalding and skimming removes the grey froth and any grit; if the tub is short of liquid, make up the difference with more milk rather than water.
- Two layers, never threeThe old rule behind this recipe is that oysters go in two thin layers only, each separated by crumbs. A thick central bed steams rather than bakes and releases enough liquid to turn the whole dish grey and loose.
- Bread crumbs over crackerThe parenthetical is worth heeding. Soft fresh bread crumbs stay open and absorb the milk; cracker crumbs pack down and set into a paste. If using cracker, use common saltines or water biscuits, not seasoned crumbs.
- Butter measureOne-third cup is 5 tablespoons plus a teaspoon, a little over 75 g. Melt it and toss it through the crumbs so every crumb is coated; loose butter poured over the top will simply run to the bottom.
- Judging donenessIt is ready when the top is well browned and the liquid bubbles at the edges. Oysters need only to plump and curl at the frill; another ten minutes for good measure will shrink them and squeeze out water.
- YieldServes four as a main course with bread, or six as a first course. It does not reheat well, so bake it in a dish sized to be finished at one meal.