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Oyster Omelet
Add to a half cup of cream six eggs beaten very light, season with pepper and salt, and pour into a frying-pan with a table-spoon of butter; drop in a dozen large oysters cut in halves, or chopped fine with parsley, and fry until a light brown. Double it over, and serve immediately. - Mrs. T. B. Johnson, Tuscumbia.
A straightforward folded omelet with oysters worked into the egg rather than sauced over it. The whole thing hinges on how briefly the oysters cook.
- Oysters need almost no timeA dozen large shucked oysters, halved or chopped, will be done in about a minute in the setting egg. Frying the omelet until "light brown" as directed risks toughening them, so keep the heat moderate and fold as soon as the top is just barely set.
- Drain the oystersShucked oysters carry a good deal of liquor. Lift them out and pat them dry, or the omelet will weep and refuse to set. Reserve the liquor for a chowder or sauce.
- Six eggs is a large panSix eggs plus half a cup of cream is too much for a standard 8-inch skillet. Use a 12-inch nonstick or well-seasoned pan, or split the mixture into two omelets.
- The cream is generous by modern habitHalf a cup to six eggs makes a soft, almost custardy omelet that is slow to set. Two to three tablespoons gives a firmer result.
- One tablespoon of butter is thinPeriod frying-pans were typically seasoned iron. In a modern pan, two tablespoons is safer insurance against sticking, especially with the extra moisture from the oysters.
- ParsleyThe original chops the parsley with the oysters in the chopped-fine alternative; no quantity is given. Flat-leaf works better than curly here, added at the last moment so it stays green.
- DonenessOysters are cooked when their edges just ruffle and they turn opaque. If they have shrunk noticeably and firmed up, they have gone past.
- YieldServes three to four as a light supper or breakfast dish. Serve straight from the pan, as directed - a folded omelet does not hold.
The Dixie Cook Book belongs to the family of American community cookbooks assembled from contributed recipes, each signed with the donor's name and town, which is why this one carries Mrs. T. B. Johnson of Tuscumbia, Alabama. Its shell-fish section reflects how far oysters travelled in the second half of the nineteenth century: rail lines and barrels of ice carried Gulf and Chesapeake oysters well inland, and they were cheap enough to be treated as a bulking ingredient rather than a luxury - folded into omelets, stewed in milk, scalloped with cracker crumbs, fried in batter. Oyster omelet appears in cookbooks on both sides of the Atlantic in this period and no single origin is documented; the combination is old and obvious wherever oysters and eggs were both plentiful. What dates this version is the confidence with which it calls for half a cup of cream and a dozen large oysters for a single dish, a reminder that both were ordinary rather than special.