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Beards of the Oysters
One ounce of Flour.
One ounce of Butter.
Bones of the Whitings. Half a gill of Cream.
To make half a pint of stock, boil down the beards of the oysters and whitings' bones in one pint of water. Melt the flour and butter together, stir in the half pint of stock, and let it boil six minutes; then add the cream, a few drops of lemonjuice, and a little cayenne. Pour this over the soufflé.
This is not a standalone dish but the sauce that finishes a fish soufflé earlier in the section — a small velouté built on stock made from the oyster trimmings and fish bones that the main recipe would otherwise waste. Read it as an appendix to the soufflé, not as a page on its own.
- What a beard isThe beard is the dark, frilly mantle edge and gill fringe trimmed from a shucked oyster because it is tough to eat. It carries a great deal of flavour and is exactly the sort of trimming a Victorian kitchen turned into stock.
- Half a gillAn imperial gill is 5 fl oz, so half a gill is 2 1/2 fl oz — a scant 1/3 US cup, about 75 ml. The half pint of stock is imperial too: 10 fl oz, roughly 285 ml.
- Whiting, and what to use insteadWhiting is a small lean member of the cod family, still sold in Britain but patchy elsewhere. Any lean white fish frame works — cod, haddock, sole, plaice. Do not use salmon, mackerel or other oily fish; the stock turns muddy and strong.
- Don't overboil the bonesThe recipe reduces one pint to half a pint; how long that takes depends on the pan and the heat, and no time is given. Modern practice generally stops fish stock at around 20 to 30 minutes, on the grounds that longer simmering draws bitterness and a gluey texture rather than flavour.
- Strain it properlyOyster beards hold grit and sand. Strain the finished stock through muslin or a coffee filter before it goes near the roux, or the sauce will be gritty and no amount of cream will hide it.
- The rouxEqual ounces of flour and butter to half a pint of liquid gives a proper pouring sauce. Cook the two together a minute or two without colouring before adding the stock — the six-minute boil that follows is there to cook out the raw flour taste, so do not cut it short.
- Cream at the endAdd the cream off a hard boil and warm it through only. Lemon juice goes in last, a few drops at a time; too much with cream and a hot reduced stock risks a grainy sauce.
- SeasoningNo salt is specified. Stock made from oyster beards is naturally saline, which may be why. Taste before serving; reduced stock plus cayenne can need very little.
- YieldHalf a pint of stock plus half a gill of cream gives roughly 350 ml of sauce, less what boils away. It thickens as it stands, so hold it warm over water and loosen with a spoonful of stock if needed.
High-class cookery of this kind was luxurious at the table and severely thrifty behind the door, and this small sauce is a clean example of both. The soufflé it dresses would have been made from the plump oyster bodies and the flesh of the whiting; the beards and the bones, worthless in themselves, are simmered down to make the stock that becomes the sauce, so nothing bought leaves the kitchen unused. Whiting was commonly used for soufflés, quenelles and forcemeats — cheap, very lean, and with a flesh that pounds to a fine paste — while oysters were used here as a flavouring as much as a delicacy. The sauce itself is a plain velouté: a white roux let down with fish stock, enriched with cream and sharpened at the last with lemon and cayenne, a combination the classical repertoire generally traces to the codified sauce system of French professional cookery, which British cookery schools of the era taught more or less wholesale.