Batter
2 eggs 1 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon pepper 1 cup bread flour 3/4 cup milk Beat eggs until light, add salt and pepper. Add milk slowly to flour, stir until smooth and well mixed. Combine mixtures.
Fried Oysters. Philadelphia Relish Follow directions for Fried Oysters. Serve with Philadelphia Relish. 2 cups cabbage, finely shredded 2 green peppers, finely chopped 1 teaspoon celery seed 1/4 teaspoon mustard seed 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons brown sugar 1/4 cup vinegar Mix ingredients in order given.
A plain frying batter of the sort used for oysters, fish fillets and clams. The proportions are workable as written; the order of operations in the text is what needs attention.
- Bread flourThis means ordinary strong white flour, not flour containing leavening. All-purpose flour gives a slightly more tender coating and can be substituted directly.
- ConsistencyYou want a batter that coats the back of a spoon and drips off in a ribbon, roughly the thickness of heavy cream. Hold back a little milk if your flour is thirsty, or add a spoonful more if the batter clings too heavily.
- Rest itTen to fifteen minutes standing lets the flour hydrate and the gluten relax, so the coating fries crisp rather than tough. Stir once before using.
- Frying temperatureFry at 365-375F. Below that the batter absorbs fat and slumps; much above it and the coating colors before the fish inside is cooked.
- Oysters cook fastShucked oysters need only until the batter is golden, about a minute and a half to two minutes. Longer and they tighten into rubber.
- YieldRoughly 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cups of batter, enough to coat something on the order of a pint or two of shucked oysters, depending on their size.
- The relishThe cabbage and pepper mixture is an uncooked slaw-style relish; it wants at least an hour in the refrigerator for the sugar and vinegar to draw juice from the cabbage. It keeps several days covered and cold.