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Brown Fricassee of Oysters
1 pint oysters 3 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons Gold Medal flour 1 teaspoon salt Few grains cayenne 1/2 teaspoon chopped parsley Drain and clean the oysters, scald and skim the oyster liquor. Parboil the oysters in the oyster liquor. Brown the butter, add flour and stir until well browned, add the oyster liquor slowly, stirring constantly; add the seasonings and oysters. Serve on toast or in patty shells.
A simple brown-roux oyster stew from a flour-company promotional book. The whole dish stands or falls on how long the oysters spend in heat.
- The hinge: barely cook the oysters"Parboil" here means only until the edges ruffle, roughly 1 to 2 minutes. Anything longer and they tighten into rubber; lift them out with a slotted spoon and return them to the finished sauce at the last moment, off the heat.
- A pint of oystersShucked oysters were sold by liquid measure. A pint is roughly a dozen to two dozen oysters depending on size, and yields 2 to 3 servings on toast, or fills 4 to 6 small patty shells.
- Oyster liquorThe liquid in the container is the liquor. Scalding and skimming removes the grey albumen scum and any grit; strain it through a fine sieve or cheesecloth as well. If a pint of oysters gives less than a cup of liquor, make up the difference with milk or light stock or the sauce will be too thick.
- Browning the butter and flourThree tablespoons butter to two of flour is a loose roux, which is what you want for browning. Cook it over medium heat to the colour of weak coffee, stirring, and expect 5 to 8 minutes. Once it smells acrid it is burnt and must be started again.
- SaltA full teaspoon is heavy against already-salty oyster liquor. Add half, then taste after the sauce has thickened.
- "Few grains cayenne"About 1/8 teaspoon, no more. The heat is meant to be felt rather than tasted.
- Patty shellsPatty shells were either baked at home from puff pastry or bought ready-made from a baker. Frozen puff pastry vol-au-vent cases do the same work; bake them as the package directs.
Fricassee normally means poultry or veal stewed in a sauce made from its own cooking liquid, and the French kitchen distinguished the white version, thickened with a pale roux and often finished with egg and cream, from the brown, built on a roux cooked to colour. American cookbooks of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries borrowed the term freely, applying it to oysters, tripe and rabbit alike. The recipe comes from a flour miller's cook book, a genre that spread as branded, uniformly milled flour replaced barrels bought loose, and such books repeat the brand name inside the ingredient list as a matter of course. Oysters were cheap and shipped inland by rail in sealed cans and pails, so a book aimed at a general American household could assume a pint was easy to come by.