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Veal with Oysters
Fry two pounds tender veal cut in thin bits, and dredged with flour, in sufficient hot lard to prevent sticking; when nearly done add one and a half pints of fine oysters, thicken with flour, season with salt and pepper, and cook until done. Serve hot in covered dish.
A quick skillet dish that lives or dies on the oysters, which are added at the very end and need almost no cooking. Read the last line of the recipe as "cook two or three minutes," not longer.
- The hinge: oyster timingOysters are done the moment their edges ruffle and the plump bodies firm slightly, roughly two to three minutes in a hot pan. The recipe gives no time, and "cook until done" read generously will turn them to rubber and flood the pan with liquor.
- Cut the veal thin"Thin bits" is undefined, but scaloppine-thin, about 1/4 inch, cut across the grain from a lean cut such as leg or loin, suits the method. Thicker pieces need longer than the oysters can tolerate, so pound or slice them thin and brown them in batches in a wide pan rather than crowding.
- How many oystersA pint of shucked oysters is 2 cups with their liquor, so one and a half pints is 3 cups, roughly 25 to 30 medium oysters, or about two standard 12 oz tubs. Drain them and reserve the liquor; add the liquor to the pan for the sauce.
- LardRendered lard is still sold and gives the cleanest flavour here, but any high-smoke-point fat works; 3 to 4 tablespoons is "sufficient to prevent sticking." Clarified butter also browns the veal well.
- ThickeningThe veal is already dredged, so the second thickening should be light: a tablespoon of flour whisked into the pan fat before the oyster liquor goes in, or a tablespoon of flour slaked in cold water. Add liquid gradually or the flour will seize into lumps.
- SeasoningOyster liquor is salty, so season after the sauce comes together rather than before. A little mace, cayenne or lemon is period-appropriate if it tastes flat.
- Yield and serviceServes four to six with rice, mashed potato or toast. The covered dish is not decoration: the sauce thins and the oysters toughen as the dish sits, so serve it straight from the pan if you can.
Veal and oysters look like an odd pairing now, but in nineteenth-century American cooking oysters were the cheap, abundant thing on the plate and the veal was the luxury. Chesapeake and Gulf beds shipped oysters by barrel and later by rail in ice, so cookbooks from Ohio to the Deep South treated a pint of oysters as an everyday pantry item, folded into stuffings, sauces, patties, fritters and scallops. The Dixie Cook Book is one of the great regional compilation cookbooks of the 1880s, built out of contributed household receipts. In dishes of this kind the shellfish stretches a small quantity of expensive meat while adding the briny liquor that does the work of a stock.