No. 2349

Shells of Mussels or Oysters Baked

Coquilles de Moules ou d'Huitres au Gratin

Suppress the black foot (the appendage) of some mussels and cut them up into two or three pieces; place these in a highly seasoned allemande sauce (No. 407); add to it chopped parsley, and fill the shells (Fig. 438) already buttered with this preparation; dust over with fried bread-crumbs, and leave them in the oven for a few minutes before serving. Oysters may be prepared exactly the same way.

← No. 2348 Shells of Lobster Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2350 Oysters Baked in Their Shells →

For the Modern Kitchen

A cross-referenced entry from Ranhofer's The Epicurean, written for a kitchen that already had allemande sauce on the stove and a cook who knew mussels arrive raw. Two things are assumed rather than stated: the shellfish are cooked and shucked before they reach this recipe, and the sauce is thick enough to hold.

Cook the mussels firstThe recipe begins with mussels already opened, so they must be cooked and shucked before they reach this point. Steam them in a covered pan with a splash of white wine until the shells open, discard any that stay shut, and strain and reserve the liquor to loosen the sauce.
The black footWhat Ranhofer calls the appendage is the beard, or byssus, the tough fibrous tuft the mussel uses to anchor itself. Pull it away from the meat before chopping; it stays leathery no matter how long it cooks.
Allemande sauceNo. 407 is a velouté finished with an egg-yolk liaison and lemon (cream in some versions), essentially a rich white sauce. A thick velouté made with the mussel liquor, mounted with a yolk off the heat, gets you there. Keep it below a simmer once the yolk goes in or it will curdle.
CoquillesThe shells are the deep-cupped kind used as individual baking dishes, generally scallop shells; Fig. 438 is presumably an illustration of one. Ovenproof ramekins or the deeper half of the mussel shells work as well. Butter them as directed so the gratin lifts out cleanly.
Fried bread-crumbsNot raw crumbs: the wording points to crumbs already fried in butter until golden, which brown evenly and will not go soggy on a wet filling. Toast crumbs in butter in a pan before scattering them over.
Oven and timingA few minutes means exactly that. The filling is already cooked, so the shells need only a hot oven -- around 425F on a modern dial, though the book gives no temperature -- long enough to bubble at the edges and colour the crumbs, five to eight minutes. Longer and the mussels tighten and the sauce splits.
OystersRanhofer's note that oysters may be prepared the same way holds. Shucked raw oysters, cut in halves if large, will cook through in the short time in the oven; poached first and then baked, they are apt to toughen.
YieldThe recipe gives no quantities. As a rough guide, about a pint of shucked mussels with a cup of sauce would fill six shells.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer was chef at Delmonico's in New York across two stints spanning some thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is the record of that repertoire: some 3,500 numbered entries, cross-referenced to each other so that a dish like this one takes three lines because the sauce it depends on is already written out at No. 407. The coquille au gratin, cooked shellfish bound in sauce, returned to a shell and browned, was familiar French service of the period and shows up on both sides of the Atlantic under various names; the book illustrates a shell as a piece of equipment rather than an ingredient. Mussels appear less often than oysters in American cookbooks of the era.