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Scalloped Oysters
1 pint oysters 4 tablespoons oyster liquor 2 tablespoons milk or cream 1/2 cup stale bread crumbs 1 cup cracker crumbs 1/2 cup melted butter Salt Pepper Mix bread and cracker crumbs, and stir in butter. Put a thin layer in bottom of a buttered shallow baking-dish, cover with oysters, and sprinkle with salt and pepper; add one-half each oyster liquor and cream. Repeat, and cover top with remaining crumbs. Bake thirty minutes in hot oven. Never allow more than two layers of oysters for Scalloped Oysters; if three layers are used, the middle layer will be underdone, while others are properly cooked. A sprinkling of mace or grated nutmeg to each layer is considered by many an improvement. Sherry wine may be used in place of cream.
A straightforward two-layer scallop that depends more on crumb texture and oven heat than on technique. The instructions are sound; only the vessel, the oven wording and the oyster quantities need translating.
- Hot oven"Hot oven" in books of this period is usually taken as somewhere around 400-450F. At that heat the top crumbs brown while the oysters below just set.
- Thirty minutes is longHalf an hour at the upper end of that range will overcook shucked oysters unless the dish is deep and starting cold. Watch for the liquid bubbling at the edges and the top well browned, often sooner than thirty minutes in a shallow dish; oysters that curl tightly and shrink have gone too far.
- Two layers onlyThe note about layering is the hinge of the recipe. Oysters give off liquid and steam rather than roast, so a third layer sits in cool juice and stays raw while the top burns. Use a wider dish rather than a deeper one.
- A pint of oystersShucked oysters were sold by liquid measure. A pint is roughly 16-20 medium oysters, close to a pound with the liquor, and serves about four as a side dish. Buy them in their liquor, which the recipe also calls for.
- Oyster liquorThe strained juice from the container or from shucking. If yours is short of 4 tablespoons, top it up with bottled clam juice rather than water, which dilutes the flavour.
- Cracker crumbsThese meant plain unsalted soda or water crackers, crushed fine. Saltines work but reduce the added salt. In practice the bread crumbs absorb the liquor while the crackers stay crisper on top, though the recipe does not say why the two are combined.
- Half a cup of butterThat is 8 tablespoons for 1.5 cups of crumbs, which is generous by modern habit but is what keeps the crumbs from turning to paste. Cutting it much below 6 tablespoons changes the dish.
- Sherry instead of creamUse a dry or medium sherry, not "cooking sherry," and keep to the same 2 tablespoons. Divided between two layers it reads as seasoning rather than as wine.