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Baked Oysters
Put in a small lined stewpan a quarter of a pound of butter and one teacupful of cream, stirring them well over a fire until thoroughly mingled. Add one wineglassful of wine, one tablespoonful of anchovy sauce and a small quantity each of cayenne pepper and grated lemon peel, and continue stirring over the fire until hot. Pour half of this mixture into a dish and lay the oysters on it. Strew Parmesan cheese and breadcrumbs over, with a little salt and pepper, pouring on the remainder of the cream and butter, with another thin layer of crumbs and cheese on top. Bake until nicely browned in a brisk oven and serve while hot.
Baked Oysters in their Shells Open some oysters, remove the beards and dip them first in beaten egg and then in finely grated breadcrumbs that have been seasoned with pepper, salt and grated nutmeg. Place the oysters in their lower shells, put a small piece of butter on each, and bake for a few minutes in a brisk oven. When ready, place the shells with the oysters on a dish, squeeze a small quantity of lemon juice over each, and serve.
Baked Oysters on Toast Beard two dozen fine oysters, put their beards and liquor into a stewpan, and let them simmer for a few minutes. Butter some toasts thickly on one side, lay them buttered side downwards on a dish that will stand the heat of the fire and put the oysters on top. Strain the oyster liquor and mix with it one ounce of butter in small bits, season to taste with salt and a small quantity of cayenne pepper and pour it over the oysters. Place the dish in a brisk oven for a few minutes, then take it out and serve the oysters very hot with a plate of cut lemon.
Three variations on the same idea, all of them fast. The single thing to hold onto is that the oysters are the last ingredient to receive heat and the first to suffer from it: everything else in the dish should already be hot when it goes into the oven.
- Cook them brieflyOysters are done the moment their edges ruffle, roughly two minutes of real heat. Build the sauce and heat the dish first, then bake only long enough to brown the crumbs and cheese, about 6 to 10 minutes at high heat. Longer and they shrink and turn rubbery.
- A brisk ovenBrisk is generally reckoned at roughly 400 to 450F. For the crumb-topped versions a short blast under the broiler at the end will brown the top without overcooking what is underneath.
- Teacupful and wineglassfulA teacupful in this period is reckoned variously, from about half a cup to three-quarters; a wineglassful is usually 2 fluid ounces, a quarter cup. The wine is unspecified; a fortified wine such as sherry or Madeira suits anchovy and cream.
- Quantity of oystersThe first recipe never says. The sauce as written, a quarter pound of butter and a teacupful of cream, would be about right for two dozen shucked oysters, serving roughly four as a first course.
- Anchovy sauceThe bottled condiment is still sold in Britain but is hard to find elsewhere. A teaspoon of anchovy paste loosened with a little water, or a dash of Worcestershire, gives a similar salty background.
- BeardsThe beard is the dark gill frill along the edge of the oyster. If you are opening your own, pull the frill away with your fingers and keep it for the liquor, as the toast version directs.
- Save the liquorIn the toast version the strained liquor plus butter is the entire sauce, so shuck over a bowl and lose none of it. Simmering the beards in it for a few minutes deepens the flavour before straining.
- Toast, buttered side downNot a misprint; the recipe says buttered side downwards on the dish.
These three preparations show a range: a rich gratin in a dish, a plainer breaded oyster baked in its own half shell, and a frugal version on buttered toast that wastes neither the beards nor the liquor. They come from an era when oysters were still cheap and abundant in New York, the beds of the lower Hudson estuary and Long Island supplying the city in such volume that oyster cellars and stands were ordinary street food. The anchovy sauce, the beards and the grated lemon peel mark the recipes as descendants of English kitchen practice, where anchovy had long served as a savoury seasoning for fish and shellfish. Within a few decades pollution and overharvesting had closed many of the local beds.