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Oyster Cromeskies
Scald the required number of oysters in their own liquor and put them between slices of bacon cut very thin. Two oysters are quite sufficient for one slice of bacon. Roll the bacon over and fasten the oysters in with a small skewer. Fry them to a nice brown, place them on a dish and serve hot.
A very short set of instructions that assumes a cook who already knows what a cromesky is. The hinge is the scald: the oysters need only to firm and ruffle at the edges, not cook through, since they will finish inside the bacon.
- Scalding the oystersBring the liquor barely to a simmer, drop the oysters in for 30 to 60 seconds, until the edges curl, then lift them out and drain them well. Longer and they shed water inside the bacon roll and turn tough.
- Save the liquorStrain the scalding liquor and keep it. It is the base of an oyster sauce or a soup.
- Bacon cut very thinStandard supermarket bacon is thicker than what is meant here. Ask for it sliced thin, or flatten and stretch each rasher with the back of a knife so it wraps without bulk and crisps in the time the oysters need.
- The skewerA wooden cocktail pick does the job and is easier to remove at the table than metal. Soak picks in water first if you are pan-frying over high heat.
- FryingA dry, moderately hot pan is enough; the bacon renders its own fat. Turn the rolls to brown all sides, three to four minutes total. If you deep-fry them, as the cromesky name implies, 375F for about two minutes.
- Where the batter wentA true cromesky is usually dipped in batter before frying. Oscar leaves that step out, which brings this dish very close to the English savoury angels on horseback. Add a thin frying batter if you want the older form.
- Yield and servingTwo oysters per slice, and count three or four rolls per person as a hot hors d'oeuvre or savoury course. Serve at once on toast points or fried bread with lemon; they collapse as they cool.
Cromesky (also kromeski or cromeskie) is generally traced to a Russian and Polish kromeska, though the etymology is unsettled, and by the late nineteenth century it meant a small croquette-like parcel wrapped in something fatty, usually calf's udder or bacon, dipped in batter and deep-fried. Escoffier and his English contemporaries list a good many of them, with fillings of chicken, brains, salmon and lobster. Oscar Tschirky's oyster version, dropping the batter, sits right next to the English savoury known as angels on horseback, which appears in cookbooks of the period; both belong to an era when a hot bite of oyster and bacon was often served at the close of a formal dinner rather than at its opening. Oysters were cheap and abundant in New York when this book appeared, which is why they turn up in this kitchen in every conceivable form.