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Devilled Oysters
Twenty-five oysters; one-half pint of cream; one tablespoon of butter; two tablespoons of flour; two eggs (yolks only); one tablespoon of chopped parsley; salt and pepper to taste. Drain the oysters, chop them coarsely, and again drain. Heat the cream until it boils, add the butter and flour stirred to a cream, and when the liquid thickens, remove from the fire, and add the beaten yolks, the salt, pepper and parsley, and then the oysters. Wash the oyster shells very carefully, fill them, or scallop shells, with mixture, sprinkle lightly with bread crumbs, arrange in a baking-pan, and brown (about seven minutes) in a quick oven.
OYSTERS À LA POULETTE-Set a solid quart of oysters on the stove to heat in their own liquor. As soon as they begin to boil, skim carefully and turn them into a strainer. When they have been well drained, set them aside. Place one-half pint of the oyster liquor in a saucepan, and when it begins to boil stir into it one heaping teaspoon of flour mixed with three tablespoons of cold water and let it boil gently for five minutes longer. Pour one pint of cream into a double boiler and when it begins to boil add the thickened oyster liquor, and season with salt, pepper, a slight grating of nutmeg and a grain of cayenne. Have at hand the well-beaten yolks of four eggs and add to them one-half cup of cold cream. Place the oysters in the cooking mixture, together with one tablespoon of butter and then add the egg mixture. Cook for three miuutes, stirring all the time, remove from the fire immediately, and serve with a border of puff paste cakes. If liked, a tablespoon of lemon juice may be added just as the oysters are taken from the fire.
Two oyster dishes on one page, both built on the same principle: a cream sauce enriched with egg yolks, with the oysters added at the very end. The page assumes a coal range and a cook who buys oysters by the quart, shucked, in their liquor.
- The hinge: oysters go in lastIn the poulette the oysters meet the finished sauce for only about three minutes. In the devilled version they go in raw and cook through in the oven while the crumbs colour. Oysters toughen quickly with prolonged heat, so overcooking, and reheating leftovers, is the main risk.
- "A quick oven"Roughly 400-425F. The mixture is already thickened, so the job is to set the top and colour the crumbs; the broiler is a reasonable substitute if the shells are already hot.
- Half a pint of creamOne cup. The pint of cream in the poulette is two cups, plus the half cup of cold cream beaten with the yolks. Use heavy cream; nineteenth-century "cream" was unstandardised but generally richer than modern half-and-half.
- Buying the oystersTwenty-five shucked oysters is roughly a pint; a "solid quart" means a quart of drained oyster meats, not oysters swimming in liquor, so buy generously. If you want the shells for serving you will need to shuck them yourself, or use scallop shells or small ramekins as the recipe allows.
- Butter and flour "stirred to a cream"A raw butter-and-flour paste whisked into the boiling liquid, here two parts flour to one of butter rather than the equal parts of a standard beurre manié. It is not a cooked roux, so let the sauce simmer a moment to lose the raw flour taste before the yolks go in.
- Tempering the yolksThe devilled version tells you to remove the pan from the fire before adding beaten yolks, and the poulette dilutes them with cold cream first. Both are guarding against scrambling. Add a ladle of hot sauce to the yolks, then return the lot to the pan off direct heat.
- "Devilled" here is mildNothing but salt, pepper and parsley. If you want the heat the name implies, mustard and cayenne are the period-appropriate additions and go in with the seasoning.
- Puff paste cakesSmall rounds or squares of puff pastry, baked separately and arranged around the dish. Frozen all-butter puff pastry does the job.
- YieldThe devilled oysters fill about eight to ten shells, serving four as a first course. The poulette, with a solid quart of oysters and two and a half cups of cream, serves six generously over toast or pastry.
Oysters were cheap in nineteenth-century America and the Butterick book, like many general household manuals of the 1890s, gives them a long run of entries — stewed, fried, scalloped, panned, in patties. Both dishes here are French technique applied to an American glut: à la poulette is the classic velouté finished with egg yolks and lemon, said by tradition to be named for the pale chicken-coloured sauce rather than for any chicken in the pot, and it was applied to sweetbreads, mussels and tripe as readily as to oysters. "Devilled" retained its peppery sense through this period, though the version here carries no devil at all beyond a shake of pepper. The instruction to wash and fill the oyster shells is a reminder that the shells were part of the dish; the scallop shell was the fallback.