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Panned Oysters
Cut stale bread in thin slices, then round them, removing all crust. Make them to fit patty-pans; toast them, butter, and place in pans. Moisten with three or four tea-spoons of oyster liquor; then place on the toast a layer of oysters, sprinkle with pepper, and put on top a small piece of butter; place pans in a baking pan and put in oven, covering with a tin lid, or if not large enough, another pan to keep in the steam and flavor; have a quick oven, and when cooked seven or eight minutes, until "ruffled," remove cover and sprinkle with salt; replace cover and cook one minute longer. Serve in the patty-pans. This is delicious.
A simple oyster course built on toast rounds baked in individual tins. The whole thing hinges on stopping the moment the oysters ruffle.
- Quick ovenA "quick oven" is usually reckoned at roughly 400-450F. The high heat is deliberate: it sets the oysters fast under cover before their liquor cooks away.
- Patty-pansThese are small individual tart or tartlet tins, roughly 2 1/2 to 3 inches across, not the deep muffin cups of a modern tray. Shallow tins let the oysters sit in one layer, which is what makes the timing work. Ramekins of similar diameter substitute cleanly.
- Ruffled means doneThe edges of an oyster curl and frill as the muscle contracts. That is the finish line. Seven or eight minutes is about right for medium oysters in a hot oven, but check at five; overcooked oysters shrink and turn rubbery, and no amount of butter fixes it.
- Oyster liquorThe liquid in the shell, or in the tub of shucked oysters. Strain it through a fine sieve or a coffee filter to catch shell grit. If your oysters came drained, a spoonful of clam juice or fish stock stands in.
- Salt at the endNot fussiness. Oysters and their liquor are already saline, and salting early draws out moisture and firms the flesh. Taste before you add any at all.
- The coverA tin lid or an inverted second pan traps steam so the oysters poach in their own liquor rather than roasting dry. Foil crimped over the baking pan does the same job.
- Stale breadDay-old bread with a close crumb, sliced thin (a quarter-inch or so works), cut into rounds with a cutter. Fresh soft bread collapses into the liquor. Toast it dry, then butter.
- YieldThe recipe gives none. As a rough guide, allow a few medium oysters per pan and two pans a person as a first course; a pint of shucked oysters will fill several tins, depending on their size.
The Dixie Cook Book belongs to the great wave of compiled American household manuals of the 1880s, and its shell-fish chapter reflects a period when oysters were cheap and abundant over much of the country. Chesapeake and Gulf beds supplied barrels of shucked oysters that traveled inland by rail packed in ice, which is why oyster recipes appear in cookbooks written for kitchens hundreds of miles from salt water. "Panned" here means baked in a pan under cover, distinct from the era's other standard treatments — fried, scalloped, broiled, stewed, and roasted in the shell. Serving each portion in its own small tin fits the period fashion for individual patty cases, and the closing line, "This is delicious," is the kind of aside common in books assembled from contributed household receipts.