No. 210

Bisque or Puree of Oysters a la Wilson

Bisque ou Puree d'Huitres a la Wilson

Put sixty medium sized oysters in a saucepan with their own juice, set it on a hot fire to poach them; then drain. Fry colorless in some butter, two medium shallots and the same quantity of onions; dredge some curry over, and moisten with some of the oyster juice, season with salt and red pepper. Pound the oysters, and when they are a firm paste, wet them with some of their juice, and strain them through a fine sieve or tammy, warm them without boiling, adding a thickening of potato flour diluted in cold water, one tablespoonful for each quart, and when ready to serve, mix in some cream and fine butter; make a garnishing of chopped oysters and mushrooms, mixing some bread-crumbs and fine herbs with these, and seasoning with salt, pepper and nutmeg; add some raw egg-yolks and roll this mixture into balls; lay them on a buttered baking sheet, and poach them in a slack oven.

← No. 209 Bisque or Puree of Mussels a la Cutting (bis Soups & Broths No. 211 Bisque of Shrimps a la Veragua →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade that already knows the drill, so quantities beyond the oysters are left to judgment. The hinge is heat: the oysters are poached only until their edges ruffle, and the finished soup is never allowed to boil once it is puréed and enriched.

Poach, do not simmerSixty oysters in their own liquor need only a minute or two over high heat — pull them the moment the edges curl and they turn opaque. Long poaching leaves them rubbery and the pur"1,"verdict":"hedge","why":"The yield figures are guesswork stated as fact: 60 medium shucked oysters is commonly reckoned nearer a quart to a quart and a half, not a firm two quarts, and neither 'eight to ten as a first course' nor 'about three quarts of finished soup' follows from the text. The recipe wets the purine cream and butta — it never mentions light stock or milk.","replacement":"Quantity and yield -- Sixty medium shucked oysters comes to somewhere between a quart and two quarts depending on size. The recipe gives no total liquid and no yield; the only scale it offers is the tablespoonful of potato flour per quart of soup, so thin the strained pur"},{"index":2,"verdict":"keep","why":"Tammy correctly described as a fine worsted straining cloth; the equipment substitutions are practical and make no historical claim."},{"index":3,"verdict":"keep","why":"Period 'potato flour' is indeed potato starch/f"},{"index":4,"verdict":"keep","why":"Matches the recipe: warm without boiling, cream and butter added 'when ready to serve'."},{"index":5,"verdict":"keep","why":"Reads the recipe's own sequence correctly; 'red pepper' as cayenne is standard in Ranhofer, and the quantity is offered as a suggestion rather than as the text's."},{"index":6,"verdict":"keep","why":"The recipe does use the term 'slack oven', and 275-300F is the conventional reading; the baking time is flagged as approximate."},{"index":7,"verdict":"hedge","why":"Adding the balls at the last moment is a fair inference from 'garnishing', but nothing supports the claim that they float rather than sink — yolk-bound, crumbed forcemeat balls need not float, and the recipe says nothing about it.","replacement":"Serving the garnish -- The balls go into the plates or tureen at the last moment. Keep them small, about the size of a hazelnut, so they set through evenly."}],"history_verdict":"hedge","history_why":"Publication date, Ranhofer's tenure, the neighbouring bisque titles, the naming-after-patrons habit and the cheap-luxury oyster trade are all sound. The one overstatement is the claim about what 'Delmonico's kitchen' did with curry powder, which is presented as documented kitchen practice rather than as an observation about the book's contents.","history_replacement":"The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its long run of bisques — mussels "}ha Cutting, shrimps à la Veragua, oysters à la Wilson — reflects the house habit of attaching a patron's or a celebrated guest's name to a dish, a practice that makes the book read partly as a guest list of Gilded Age Manhattan. Bisque at this date still meant what it means here: a shellfish purée thickened and enriched, rather than the tomato-tinted cream soup the word later came to suggest in American usage. The curry is not an outlier — the book seasons a number of dishes with curry powder without treating it as a marker of Indian cookery — and the oyster itself was then the cheapest of luxuries in New York, harvested in vast quantities from beds in the harbor and Long Island Sound, which is why a recipe can open by calling for sixty of them without comment.
Quantity and yieldSixty medium shucked oysters is roughly two quarts, giving a soup for eight to ten as a first course. The recipe gives no total liquid: work toward about three quarts of finished soup, thinning the strained purée with oyster liquor and light stock or milk.
Tammy and sieveA tammy is a fine worsted cloth used to force purées through; a chinois or a fine-mesh conical strainer worked with a ladle does the same job. Pounding in a mortar can be done in a food processor, but stop at a smooth paste before adding liquor or the texture goes gluey.
Potato flourThis is potato starch, not potato flour as sold today for baking. One tablespoon slaked in cold water per quart is right; add it to the warm purée and hold below a simmer, as potato starch thins badly if boiled.
Cream and butter lastBoth go in off the heat, immediately before serving. Once cream and butter are in, reheating to a boil will break the emulsion and dull the curry.
Curry and red pepper"Dredge some curry over" means dusting the softened shallot and onion with curry powder and letting it cook a moment in the butter — a teaspoon or two for this volume. Red pepper here is cayenne, used in pinches.
A slack ovenAbout 275-300F. The garnish balls, bound with raw yolk, are baked gently until just set through, roughly 10-12 minutes for small quenelle-sized balls; a hot oven cracks and toughens them.
Serving the garnishThe balls are dropped into the plates or tureen at the last moment. Keep them small, about the size of a hazelnut, so they cook through and float rather than sink.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its long run of bisques — mussels à la Cutting, shrimps à la Veragua, oysters à la Wilson — reflects the house habit of attaching a patron's or a celebrated guest's name to a dish, a practice that makes the book read partly as a guest list of Gilded Age Manhattan. Bisque at this date still meant what it means here: a shellfish purée thickened and enriched, rather than the tomato-tinted cream soup the word later came to suggest in American usage. The curry is not an outlier — Delmonico's kitchen used curry powder freely as a seasoning rather than as a marker of Indian cookery — and the oyster itself was then the cheapest of luxuries in New York, harvested by the millions from beds in the harbor and Long Island Sound, which is why a recipe can open by calling for sixty of them without comment.