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Jack's Oyster Ragout
Parboil fresh honeycomb tripe, and cut in three-fourths inch pieces; there should be one cup. Add an equal quantity of small boiled onions, and twice the quantity of raw oysters which have been previously cleaned. Melt three tablespoons butter, add four tablespoons flour, and pour on gradually while stirring constantly one and one-half cups thin cream.
Add tripe, onion, and oysters. When thoroughly heated add yolks two eggs slightly beaten, and season highly with salt, pepper, and paprika. Serve on pieces toasted bread.
A chafing-dish supper dish built on two ingredients that were cheap in 1896 and are not now. The whole thing hinges on how little the oysters and egg yolks are cooked.
- Tripe needs far longer than "parboil"Honeycomb tripe sold today usually wants 1½ to 3 hours at a bare simmer before it is tender enough to eat; "parboil" here probably assumes tripe that came from the market already largely cooked, as much tripe of the period did. Simmer until a knife slips through easily, then cut into ¾-inch pieces.
- Oysters go in last and brieflyTwo cups of shucked raw oysters added to a hot sauce need only about two minutes, until the edges ruffle. Held longer over a chafing-dish flame they shrink and turn rubbery, and they release liquor that thins the sauce.
- The egg yolks must not boilOnce the yolks go in, keep the pan below a simmer and stir constantly. At a boil they scramble and the sauce breaks; off the direct flame it thickens smoothly in a minute or two.
- "Thin cream"The lighter of the two creams the book calls for; modern light cream (around 18 percent butterfat) is the nearest equivalent, with half-and-half a thinner substitute. Not modern heavy cream, which will make the sauce claggy against four tablespoons of flour.
- Quantities, spelled out1 cup cooked tripe, 1 cup small boiled onions (pearl or boiling onions), 2 cups shucked oysters, 3 tablespoons butter, 4 tablespoons flour, 1½ cups thin cream, 2 egg yolks.
- The roux is heavy on purposeFour tablespoons flour to 1½ cups cream gives a very thick base, because the oysters and their liquor will loosen it considerably. Cook the flour in the butter a full minute or two before adding liquid to lose the raw taste.
- YieldServes four as a light supper, over toast. Toast the bread just before serving; it softens fast under a cream sauce.
Chafing-dish cookery had a real vogue in American cities in the 1890s, when a spirit lamp and a shallow pan let people cook at the table in rooms with no proper kitchen — bachelor lodgings, college rooms, after-theatre suppers. Fannie Farmer gave the technique its own chapter, and its repertoire leans heavily on oysters, lobster, eggs and cream, all things that cook in minutes over a small flame. Tripe with oysters looks strange now but made sense then: both were among the cheapest proteins on the Eastern seaboard, and honeycomb tripe was a standard market item rather than a specialty. The "Jack" of the title goes unexplained in the book.