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Scalloped Mussels
Put some mussels into a saucepan and toss them over a quick fire for a few minutes until the meat will come away easily from the shells. Take out the beards, weeds, etc., remove the fish from their shells, squeeze all the liquor out of them, and add to it that which came from them while being cooked: strain it into a saucepan, put in the mussels and warm them up, adding a little flour, butter, grated nutmeg and pepper; care must be taken not to let them boil and not to use any salt, as they generally contain sufficient. Clean some scallop shells, cover them with breadcrumbs, put a layer of the mussels over it, then another layer of breadcrumbs and another of mussels; moisten them with a few tablespoonfuls of the liquor, put a layer of crumbs on top, place on it a few pieces of butter, scatter over a little dried parsley, and put them in an oven to cook until they are a bright brown. They may be browned in a salamander instead of the oven, if desired, and must be served hot. Stewed Mussels, Mariniere Steam three dozen mussels in a saucepan for about ten minutes, without any water. Take them out, remove half of their shells, put them into a saucepan with two ounces of fresh butter, a small quantity of chives and finely-chopped chervil, a very little pepper and a teacupful of finely-sifted breadcrumbs; pour over one-half breakfast cupful of water and boil for two minutes longer. Turn the whole into a dish, squeeze over the juice of one-half of a lemon, and serve. The mussels should be arranged in the dish with the half shells downwards. Garnish with parsley and quarters of lemons. Mussels, Villeroy Wash and thoroughly cleanse some mussels, changing the water five or six times, if necessary, and remove the sinewy strings that are to be found inside, put them into a saucepan, pour over a wineglassful of white wine, toss them over a fire until the shells open, then turn them into a colander over a pan and let them drain. Pull them out of their shells, and when they are cool dip them into a little villeroy sauce; arrange on a baking sheet, and when the sauce has cooled sprinkle them over with breadcrumbs, repeating it to have them thoroughly covered. Plunge them into a fryingpan of boiling fat, fry to a light brown color, then take them out, drain, put them on a napkin on a dish, and serve with a garnish of fried parsley.
Three mussel preparations run together in one entry, all of them built on the same first step: open the mussels dry over high heat and save every drop of the liquor. A few of Oscar's instructions need translating, and one of his warnings is still the most important line here.
- Do not let them boilThe instruction not to boil the mussels in their thickened liquor is the hinge of the scalloped version. Mussel meat tightens and turns rubbery within a minute of a hard simmer; warm it through at barely a tremble and no more.
- And do not saltAlso correct as written. Mussel liquor is essentially seawater reduced, and a scalloped dish that also carries butter and breadcrumbs will taste over-seasoned if you add salt before tasting the finished liquor.
- Sorting live musselsBuy them alive, closed or closing when tapped, and discard any that stay gaping or that feel unusually heavy with mud. After steaming, discard any that have not opened rather than prying them. Modern farmed mussels are largely cleaned, but the "beards" Oscar mentions are the byssal threads and still need pulling.
- The liquor is grittyHe says strain it, which is not optional. Pour off the pan liquid and the liquid squeezed from the meats through a fine sieve lined with a coffee filter or muslin, leaving the last spoonful of sandy sediment behind.
- Oven and salamanderThe book gives no temperature, only "an oven" and "a bright brown." Since the filling is already cooked, browning wants high, fast heat: a hot oven of roughly 425-450F for eight to ten minutes, or a few minutes under a broiler, is a reasonable modern equivalent. A salamander was an iron plate heated and held over the dish to brown it; by Oscar's day hotel kitchens also used gas-fired overhead versions, and a broiler element does the same work.
- Scallop shellsDeep scallop shells, sold as coquille shells, or any shallow individual gratin dish of about 4 ounces. If you use real shells, set them on a bed of coarse salt or crumpled foil so they sit level.
- Old cup measuresThese were not standardized: a teacupful is usually reckoned at somewhere between a half and three-quarters of a cup, a breakfast cupful at 8 to 10 ounces, so "one-half breakfast cupful of water" comes to roughly half a cup. The scalloped recipe gives no mussel quantity at all; three dozen, as in the mariniere, will fill a few gratin shells.
- Villeroy sauceSauce Villeroi is a thick veloute or allemande, often with mushroom and truffle essence, stiff enough to set on cold food. Substitute a very thick, well-reduced bechamel or veloute, chill the coated mussels until firm before crumbing, and fry at 350-375F.
- Breadcrumbs in the mariniereSome cookbooks of this period do thicken mussel dishes with sifted crumbs, which gives a soft, thick sauce. If you want the modern version, hold the crumbs back and finish with butter and lemon instead.
Oscar Tschirky, the Waldorf's celebrated maitre d'hotel, published his Cook Book in 1896, and its shellfish chapters show how heavily the hotel's kitchen drew on the French repertoire. All three of these dishes are French in origin: moules mariniere, the sailor's or mariner's method of steaming mussels in their own liquor with butter and herbs, and a la Villeroi, the classical treatment of coating cooked morsels in a stiff sauce, breading them and deep-frying, a name traditionally linked to the Villeroy family of the French court and carried into nineteenth-century grande cuisine. Mussels sat oddly on a luxury American menu of the 1890s; they were abundant and cheap along the Atlantic coast and often used as bait or thought of as poor men's shellfish, while oysters carried the prestige. Presenting them scalloped in shells, browned under a salamander and served hot with fried parsley was the kind of borrowed European polish associated with the Waldorf's dining rooms.