Home › O › Oysters, Scalloped (Prepare the oysters)
Oysters, Scalloped (Prepare the oysters)
Prepare the oysters as in the preceding recipe, and put them in a scallop-shell or saucer, and between each layer sprinkle over a few bread-crumbs, pepper, salt and grated nutmeg; place small pieces of butter over, and bake before the fire in a Dutch oven.
Put sufficient bread-crumbs on the top to make a smooth surface, as the oysters should not be seen.
TIME.-About hour.
SEASONABLE from September to April.
A plain Victorian bake of oysters under buttered crumbs, written for a Dutch oven set on the hearth. It translates directly to a conventional oven or a hot broiler.
- The hinge: barely cook themOysters toughen within a couple of minutes of heat, so the aim is only to brown the crumbs and heat the liquor through. Ten to twelve minutes in a hot oven, or three to four minutes under a broiler, is enough for a single shell or ramekin.
- The stated timeThe printed TIME is incomplete. Judge by the crust rather than the clock: it is done when the top is golden and the juices bubble at the edge.
- "Prepare as in the preceding recipe"The preceding recipe is not reproduced on this page; in Beeton such preparation generally involves bearding the oysters, straining and reserving their liquor, and warming them in it briefly. Shucked oysters with their liquor from a fishmonger do the same job; drain them but keep a spoonful or two of liquor per shell to moisten the crumbs.
- A Dutch ovenNot the modern lidded casserole. It was an open-fronted tin reflector stood in front of the fire, which browned by radiant heat from one side. A broiler element or the top of a hot oven, 425F, gives the same effect.
- Scallop-shellsThe recipe allows a scallop-shell or a saucer. Real shells can still be bought; small gratin dishes or 4 oz ramekins work identically. Fill them no more than three-quarters full, as the liquor rises.
- CrumbsUse dry, fairly fine crumbs from stale bread rather than coarse fresh ones or packaged crumbs, which either soak flat or refuse to brown. Toss them with the melted butter before topping if you want an even crust.
- Nutmeg and saltGrate the nutmeg lightly; a heavy hand overwhelms the oysters. Salt sparingly or not at all, since oyster liquor is already saline.
- YieldReckon on five or six oysters per shell, two shells a person as a first course. Serve immediately with lemon and brown bread.
- "Seasonable September to April"This reflects the old rule against oysters in the spawning months, when native oysters are thin and milky. Farmed rock oysters are now sold year-round, though the cold months still give the best texture.
Scalloped dishes are generally said to take their name from the shell they were baked and served in, and oysters were the commonest filling because in nineteenth-century Britain they were cheap, abundant and sold by the barrel in every town within reach of the Thames, the Essex flats or the Firth of Forth. Beeton's household books treat them as an everyday ingredient rather than a luxury, appearing in soups, patties, sauces for boiled fowl and stuffings, and the price only climbed later in the century as the beds were overfished and disease thinned the native stock. The instruction to bake "before the fire in a Dutch oven" dates the recipe as clearly as anything in it: the reflector oven was the standard tool for browning small dishes in a kitchen where the closed range was still a substantial investment. The direction that the oysters "should not be seen" under the crumbs is a genteel touch of the period, when a smooth browned surface was considered the mark of a properly dressed dish.