No. 1053

Oysters a la Boucicault

Huitres a la Boucicault

Butter a deep dish; pour into it some oysters with their own liquor; season with salt, pepper, tomato catsup and tobasco sauce; scatter over a few bits of butter, here and there, and then set the dish into a hot oven; serve as soon as the oysters are poached, that is as soon as they are firm to the touch.

← No. 1052 Oysters a la Bearnaise, Tomatoed Oysters No. 1054 Oysters Rissolettes a la Pompadour →

For the Modern Kitchen

A two-minute oyster bake from Delmonico's, written for a cook who already knew what a poached oyster looks like. Everything depends on pulling the dish the moment the edges ruffle.

The hinge: firm to the touchOysters are done when the flesh plumps and the frilled edge curls, roughly 4 to 6 minutes in a hot oven. Past that they tighten and go rubbery, and no amount of butter recovers them.
"A hot oven"No temperature is given; in modern terms this means a hot oven, around 425-450F. The point is speed: the heat must set the oysters before their liquor boils away.
QuantityNo yield is given. Reckon on 6 to 8 shucked oysters per person as a first course, spread in a single layer so they cook evenly; crowded or stacked oysters steam and weep.
Oysters and their liquorBuy shucked oysters in their own liquor, or shuck and strain the liquor through a fine sieve to catch shell grit. Do not rinse them; the liquor is the sauce.
SaltOyster liquor is already saline and the catsup adds more. Season lightly, taste at the end, and adjust then.
"Tobasco sauce""Tobasco" -- Ranhofer's spelling; he means Tabasco pepper sauce, a Louisiana commercial product already long on the market by the time The Epicurean appeared. A few dashes is the intent, not a spoonful.
Tomato catsupNineteenth-century bottled catsup was thinner, sharper and more spiced than the modern sweet version. If using a supermarket ketchup, use a restrained hand or cut it with a little of the oyster liquor so the dish does not turn candied.
The dish itselfA "deep dish" here means a buttered gratin or shallow baking dish deep enough to hold the liquor, not a casserole in the modern covered sense. Serve straight from it, with bread or toast to take up the buttery liquor.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's summary of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its oyster chapter runs to dozens of preparations because oysters were then a cheap luxury in the city, sold by the barrel and eaten at every level of society. Delmonico's dishes were often named for public figures, and this one may honour Dion Boucicault, the Irish-born playwright and actor whose melodramas filled New York theatres through the second half of the century, though the recipe itself gives no explanation of the name. The recipe is also a small record of how fast commercial condiments entered fine-dining kitchens: bottled tomato catsup and Louisiana pepper sauce, both industrial products, sit here in the repertoire of one of the most formal restaurants in America.