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Oysters a la Somerset
1 pint selected oysters 1 tablespoon chopped onion 2 tablespoons chopped mushrooms 3 tablespoons butter 1/3 cup oyster liquor 1/3 cup Chicken Stock Salt Pepper Cayenne 4 tablespoons flour Parboil and drain oysters. Reserve liquor, strain, and set aside for sauce. Cook onion and mushroom in butter five minutes, add flour, and pour on gradually oyster liquor and chicken stock. Season with salt, pepper, and cayenne. Remove tough muscles from oysters, and discard. Shape oysters, cover with sauce, and cool on a plate covered with stale bread crumbs. Dip in egg and stale bread crumbs, fry in deep fat, and drain on brown paper.
This is a croquette in miniature: each oyster is jacketed in a very thick sauce, chilled firm, then breaded and fried. Everything depends on getting that jacket cold and stiff before it meets hot fat.
- Chill, do not merely cool"Cool on a plate" means refrigerate until the coating is set solid, an hour at least. Warm or soft sauce will slide off in the fryer and the oysters will spit.
- Parboil brieflyBring the oysters just to the point where the edges ruffle, a minute or less, then drain. They cook again in the fat, and oysters held at a simmer turn to rubber.
- The sauce is a panadaFour tablespoons flour to three of butter and only two-thirds cup total liquid gives a paste much stiffer than a pouring sauce. That is intentional. Cook the flour in the butter a full two minutes before adding liquid so it does not taste raw.
- Tough musclesThe small firm adductor on the side of each oyster stays chewy however it is cooked. Pinch it off before saucing.
- Frying temperatureThe recipe gives no temperature. About 375F suits breaded work of this kind; fry in small batches so the fat does not drop below 350F, about two minutes to a deep gold.
- Egg and crumbsAllow one beaten egg thinned with a tablespoon of water, and a cup of dry crumbs. "Stale bread crumbs" are dried crumbs from day-old bread, coarser than commercial fine crumbs and better here; panko is a reasonable stand-in.
- Brown paperDraining on brown paper is drip-free draining on paper towels or a wire rack. A rack keeps the underside crisp.
- YieldA pint of shucked oysters runs roughly a dozen to two dozen depending on grade, serving four as an entree course.