Home › Entrees › Oyster Crabs a la Newburg
Oyster Crabs a la Newburg
1 cup oyster crabs 1 cup mushroom caps 1/3 cup Sherry wine 1/4 cup butter 1 tablespoon flour Salt Cayenne Nutmeg 3/4 cup cream Yolks two eggs 1 tablespoon brandy Peel mushroom caps and break in pieces. Add oyster crabs and wine, cover, and let stand one hour. Melt butter, add first mixture, and cook eight minutes. Add flour, and cook two minutes. Season with salt, cayenne, and nutmeg; then add heavy cream. Just before serving add egg yolks, slightly beaten, and brandy.
A Newburg sauce in miniature, built on a shellfish that has all but left the market. The whole dish turns on the last thirty seconds, when the yolks go in.
- The hinge: the yolksOnce the beaten yolks go in, the pan must be off direct heat and the sauce held below a simmer — roughly 180F — and stirred until it just coats a spoon. A boil after this point scrambles the yolks and the sauce breaks past saving.
- Oyster crabsThese are the pea-sized commensal crabs that live inside a live oyster, once shucked out by the hundred in East Coast oyster houses and sold as a luxury. They are effectively unobtainable today outside the occasional specialist source; a cup of tiny cooked bay shrimp or picked crabmeat is the practical stand-in, though the flavor is milder.
- Cream"Cream" and "heavy cream" here both mean heavy or whipping cream, 36 percent fat or more. Half-and-half is much more likely to break against the sherry and the heat.
- Peeling mushroomsSkinning mushroom caps was a routine instruction in cookbooks of this period. Cultivated button or cremini caps need only a wipe; trim the stems and tear the caps as directed.
- The hour's macerationThe sherry-and-mushroom rest is doing real work — it seasons the shellfish and draws liquid from the mushrooms, which then reduces in the butter. Do it in the refrigerator rather than at room temperature.
- Eight minutesThat timing suits raw mushrooms and raw crabs. If you substitute already-cooked shrimp or crabmeat, cook the mushrooms and wine down first and fold the shellfish in for the final minute or two, or it will go stringy.
- Cayenne and nutmegBoth are meant as background heat and warmth, not flavor in their own right — a scant pinch of each. Nutmeg is characteristic of the Newburg seasoning in books of this period, and grated fresh it goes a long way.
- Yield and serviceAbout four small entree portions. Traditionally spooned over toast points, in patty shells, or on hot buttered crackers; it does not hold, so serve it the moment the yolks have thickened it.