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Angels on Horseback
(Anges à Cheval) Oysters Sliced bacon Lemon Cayenne pepper Fried bread or toast On each oyster pour a few drops of lemon, add a grain of cayenne pepper. Roll the oyster in a slice of bacon, and fasten with a toothpick. Fry until the bacon is cooked. Place each on a square of fried bread. Garnish with lemon and parsley. Serve hot with a dash of tomato catsup.
This dish may be served either at the beginning of a dinner, or as a savory, or for a breakfast or luncheon course. It is essentially for a winter menu. •
A savoury that survives almost unchanged; the only real difficulty is that bacon and oysters cook at very different speeds.
- The hinge: match the cooking timesAn oyster is done in about two minutes and turns to rubber shortly after, while raw bacon needs five or more. Use thin-sliced streaky bacon and blanch or half-fry it first so it only needs to crisp and colour around the oyster.
- Frying versus broiling"Fry" here means a shallow pan with a little fat. A broiler or a 425F oven on a rack is easier to control and lets the fat run off; turn once and pull them the moment the bacon browns.
- OystersShucked oysters, drained well and patted dry, medium size. Wet oysters will steam the bacon rather than let it crisp. A pint of shucked oysters gives roughly 16 to 20 pieces.
- "A grain of cayenne"Literally a few grains from the shaker, not a measured quantity. A very light dusting over the tray is enough; the bacon is already salty and the point is warmth, not heat.
- Fried breadSmall squares of white bread, crusts off, fried in butter or the bacon fat until golden, or simply toasted. Cut them slightly smaller than the wrapped oyster so the croûte does not show at the edges.
- ToothpicksSoak wooden picks if broiling, and remember to pull them before serving if the dish goes out as a savoury course rather than finger food.
- Yield and timingAllow two or three per person as a first course, four or five as a lunch dish. They must go to the table hot; they collapse into greasiness within a few minutes of standing.
- "Essentially for a winter menu"The recipe does not say why, but it fits the long-standing preference for eating oysters in the cooler months, the months with an R. Farmed oysters are sold year-round now, but buy from a reputable fishmonger and use them the day you get them.
The name is a Victorian joke, and the French anges à cheval circulates alongside the English one; which direction the borrowing ran is not established. The usual explanation is that the pale oyster is the angel and the strip of bacon its mount, though that reading is traditional rather than documented. It belongs to the peculiarly British course called the savoury, a small hot salty mouthful served after the sweet and before the dessert fruit, and it turns up in American cookbooks of the late Victorian and Edwardian period, when English dinner-party form was widely imitated. The near-identical devils on horseback, prunes or dates in bacon, are generally traced to the same family of dishes, with "devil" signalling the cayenne. Oysters were cheap and abundant on the American coast in this period, which is part of why they could be used this freely.