Oyster Patties
INGREDIENTS for 10 or 12 patties.-2 dozen oysters, 2 oz. of butter, 3 tablespoonfuls of cream, a little lemon-juice, 1 blade of pounded mace; cayenne to taste, puff-paste. AVERAGE COST, 3s.
Scald the oysters in their own liquor, beard them and cut each one into 3 pieces.
Put the butter into a stewpan, dredge in OYSTER SOUP. sufficient flour to dry it up; add the strained oyster-liquor, with the other ingredients; put in the oysters and let them heat gradually, but not boil fast. Make the patty-cases as directed for lobster patties, fill with the oyster mixture, and replace the covers.
TIME.-2 minutes for the oysters to simmer in the mixture. SEASONABLE from September to April.
Oyster Sauce (to serve with Fish, Boiled Poultry, &c.). - INGREDIENTS sufficient for sauce for 6 persons.-3 dozen oysters, ½ pint of melted butter, made with milk.
AVERAGE COST, 3s. 3d.
Open the oysters carefully and save their liquor; strain it into a clean saucepan (a lined one is best), put in the oysters and let them just come to the boiling-point, when they should look plump. Take them off the fire immediately and put the whole into a basin. Strain the liquor from them, mix with it sufficient melted butter made with milk to make 1/2 pint altogether.
When this is ready and very smooth, put in the oysters, which should be previously bearded, if you wish the sauce to be really nice. Set it by the side of the fire to get thoroughly hot, but do not allow it to boil, or the oysters will immediately harden. Using cream instead of milk makes this sauce extremely delicious.
When liked, add a seasoning of cayenne or anchovy sauce; but, as we have before stated, a plain sauce should be plain and not be overpowered by highly-flavoured essences; therefore we recommend that the above directions be implicitly followed, and no seasoning added. Never allow fewer than 6 oysters to 1 person, unless the party is very large.
SEASONABLE from September to April.
Note. A more economical sauce may be made by using a smaller quantity of oysters and not bearding them before they are added to the sauce: this may answer the purpose, but we cannot undertake to recommend it as a mode for making this delicious adjunct to fish, &c.
Oyster Scup. INGREDIENTS for soup for 12 persons.-6 dozen oysters, 3 quarts of white stock, 1/24 pint of cream, 2 oz. of butter, 1 oz. of flour; salt, cayenne and mace to taste. AVERAGE COST, 8s. 6d.
Scald the oysters in their own liquor; take them out, beard them and put them in a tureen. Take a pint of the stock, put in the beards and the liquor, which must be carefully strained, and simmer for an hour. Take it off the fire, strain it OYSTER SOUP. again, and add the remainder of the stock, with the seasoning and mace. Bring it to a boil, add the thickening of butter and flour, simmer for 5 minutes, stir in the boiling cream, pour it over the oysters, and serve.
TIME.-1 hour.
SEASONABLE from September to April.
Note. This soup can be made less rich by using milk instead of cream, and thickening with arrowroot instead of butter and flour.
A straightforward hot oyster filling in puff pastry cases; the whole success of it rests on keeping the oysters barely below a simmer.
- The hinge: never let it boilThe hinge: don't let it boil fast -- boiling hardens oysters at once, as the oyster sauce printed alongside warns. Heat the filling gradually until it is thoroughly hot; the recipe allows only the two minutes' simmering for the oysters in the mixture.
- Scalding and beardingTo scald, bring the oysters just to the point of steaming in their own strained liquor and lift them straight out. "Bearding" means trimming off the dark frilled gill margin, which stays chewy; a small knife or scissors does it quickly.
- QuantitiesTwo dozen oysters for 10 or 12 small patties. Shucked oysters sold in tubs work well, and use every drop of the liquor in the sauce.
- Butter, flour and cream2 oz butter is 4 tablespoons; dredge in flour until the fat is taken up. Three tablespoonfuls of cream is best read as double or heavy cream. The result should coat a spoon, not pour.
- Pounded maceA blade of mace is a piece of the dried aril that encases the nutmeg; pounded, it gives roughly 1/4 teaspoon of ground mace. Ground mace from a jar is a fair substitute, added with the liquor.
- Patty-casesThe original sends you to the lobster patties for these: small puff pastry shells with lids, baked blind. Bought all-butter puff pastry cut into rounds, or ready-made vol-au-vent cases, saves the step. Bake at 425F (220C) until risen and dry inside.
- Assembly and timingFill only at the last moment. Warm filling in a cold shell goes soggy; a hot shell filled and served straight away is the point of the dish.
- Seasonableness"September to April" is the old British rule of avoiding oysters in the spawning months. Farmed oysters are sold year-round now, so buy on quality rather than the calendar.
Small puff pastry cases filled with a rich savoury mixture were a staple of the Victorian supper table and the ball buffet — served warm from a napkin-lined dish, eaten standing, and made in whatever the larder offered: lobster, chicken, veal, oyster. Oysters were at the cheaper end of that list, though not the cheapest animal food to be had. Through most of the nineteenth century they were a working London food sold by the barrel and the street basket, and Mrs Beeton's average cost of 3s for two dozen reflects a supply that was still abundant before the native beds of the Thames estuary and the Channel were overfished and, later, hit by disease. Her insistence that the oysters be bearded and never boiled fast is the practical core of every oyster recipe in the book, and she repeats it in the sauce and the soup that stand beside this one.