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Oysters a L'Indienne
1 pint oysters
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
Bacon
1 tablespoon minced parsley
Cloves
6 olives
2 tablespoons chutney sauce
½ teaspoon paprika
Drain large oysters, wipe them dry, wrap each in a slice of bacon, fastened with a toothpick, and stick two cloves in each oyster. Mix the chutney sauce, Worcestershire sauce, minced parsley, olives cut fine, and paprika. Put the oysters in the pan and cook until the bacon is crisp and the oysters plump. Pour the sauce mixture over the oysters, stirring it thoroughly into the gravy. This recipe will serve three or four.
A chafing-dish-era appetizer meant for a table grill — an electric or spirit-heated pan worked in front of guests. A heavy skillet on the stove does the same job.
- A pint of oystersShucked oysters were sold by liquid measure; a pint holds anywhere from about a dozen very large oysters to two dozen or more smaller ones. Drain them well and blot dry or the bacon will never crisp.
- Bacon, thinly slicedThe quantity is left to the cook: allow one thin slice per oyster, so half a pound or more for a pint depending on the count. Modern thick-cut bacon will not render through before the oyster overcooks, so use the thinnest slices you can get, or stretch each slice thin with the back of a knife.
- The hinge: cook them fastOysters are done the moment the edges ruffle and they firm up — two to four minutes over fairly brisk heat. Waiting for the bacon to reach full crispness will turn them to rubber, so start with thin bacon and pull the pan as soon as the oysters plump.
- Whole clovesTwo whole cloves stuck in each oyster is a strong dose by current taste and they are not meant to be eaten. Either warn diners to remove them or reduce to one clove, or a pinch of ground clove stirred into the sauce.
- Chutney sauceAt this date the term most likely meant a bottled, thin, strained chutney -- closer to a spiced fruit sauce than the chunky Major Grey type. Mango chutney thinned with a little of its own vinegar is a workable substitute.
- OlivesSix olives, pitted and minced fine; green brine-cured olives are the likeliest sort. They add salt as well as flavour, so taste before adding more, since the bacon and Worcestershire are salty too.
- The sauce goes in off the heatThe sauce goes in at the end -- It is poured over and stirred into the bacon fat and oyster liquor to make a pan gravy; the recipe does not say to take the pan off the heat, but do not let the sauce boil down -- the Worcestershire and chutney turn harsh and the oysters keep cooking in it.
- ServingThree or four servings. The recipe says nothing about an accompaniment. Leave the toothpicks in until the cloves are out.
Oysters wrapped in bacon and grilled belong to a family of late-Victorian and Edwardian savouries -- angels on horseback being the best-known English version, served at the close of dinner rather than the start. The "a l'Indienne" tag here comes from the chutney and paprika, part of the long British and American appetite for Anglo-Indian flavourings in bottled form; chutney sauce, curry powder and Worcestershire had all reached the household kitchen as commercial products well before 1900. Oysters made ideal chafing-dish food: they need only a few minutes, they were cheap and abundant before the fisheries declined, and cooking them at the table was itself the entertainment. The chafing dish had a genuine vogue in American parlours from the 1890s through the 1920s, with whole cookbooks devoted to it, and oyster dishes appear in most of them.