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Beefsteak and Oysters
Broil a nice steak in the usual way. Set one quart of oysters with a very little of their juice over the fire; when they come to a boil, remove any scum and stir in three tablespoons of butter in which one tablespoon of sifted flour has been rubbed. Boil one minute, pour over the steak, and serve at once.
A late-Victorian steak sauce: broiled beef under a quick oyster cream. The whole thing hinges on how briefly the oysters cook.
- Oyster timingThe instruction to boil one minute after the butter-and-flour goes in is the whole recipe. Shucked oysters are done the moment their edges ruffle; held longer they shrink and turn rubbery. Have the steak rested and plated before you set the oysters over heat.
- A quart of oystersThat is the old shucked measure, roughly 2 lb; the count varies with grade, on the order of 40 to 75 medium oysters with their liquor. Modern tubs come in 8 or 16 oz; two 16-oz containers is close. Drain most of the liquor as directed, since too much thins the sauce.
- "Rubbed" butter and flourThree tablespoons butter kneaded cold with one tablespoon flour is a beurre manié, not a cooked roux. Work it smooth with a fork or your fingers and drop it in in small pieces so it disperses rather than lumping.
- SkimmingThe scum that rises is coagulated protein. Lift it off before the butter goes in, or it will be trapped in the finished sauce.
- Broiling the steak"In the usual way" would have meant over coals or under a gas broiler at full heat. A 1 to 1.5 inch steak takes about 4 to 5 minutes a side under a preheated broiler for medium rare, and should rest five minutes.
- SeasoningNo salt or pepper is specified; oyster liquor is already saline. Taste the sauce before it goes over the meat and add pepper; salt only if it needs it.
- YieldEnough sauce for a 2 to 3 lb steak serving four to six. It does not reheat well, so make only what will be eaten.
Pairing beef with oysters was thrift, not luxury. Through the nineteenth century oysters were among the cheapest proteins on both sides of the Atlantic, dredged in enormous volume from the Chesapeake, Long Island Sound and the Thames estuary and shipped inland in barrels and, later, in ice-packed cans, so a cook could stretch a single steak across a family table with a quart of them. Beefsteak-and-oyster combinations run all through the period's cookery, from steak-and-oyster pie to oyster stuffing for a rolled flank, and the Butterick book — issued by a pattern company for a broadly middle-class readership — presents this one without ceremony, as a way of dressing an ordinary broiled steak for company. The economics reversed within a generation: overfishing, pollution and disease shrank the great American beds, and by mid-century the cheap ingredient in this dish had become the expensive one.