No. 2350

Oysters Baked in Their Shells

Huitres Gratinees dans leurs Coquilles

Open some oysters, detach them from theirshells, leaving them in the deep one; pour over a little melted butter mixed with chopped parsley, strew the tops with bread-crumbs and grated parmesan, and then range these shells very straight on a bed of salt spread over a baking-sheet; cook them for seven or eight minutes in a moderate oven, and after taking them out wipe the bottoms of the shells carefully, and lay them on napkins to serve.

← No. 2349 Shells of Mussels or Oysters Baked Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2351 Oysters Bechamel in Their Shells →

For the Modern Kitchen

A four-ingredient gratin that lives or dies on the oven. Ranaldo's method is sound as written; the only real adjustments are temperature and a modern sense of what "moderate" means for something this small.

Oven temperatureA "moderate oven" of the period is generally reckoned at somewhere around 350-375F; the book gives no figure. For oysters this small, a hotter, faster oven — 425-450F for 6-8 minutes — will brown the crumbs before the oyster tightens. At 350F you are likely to get a cooked oyster and a pale top.
The hingePull them the moment the crumbs colour. An oyster is done when the edges just ruffle; past that it contracts and turns rubbery, and no amount of butter recovers it.
The salt bedNot seasoning. A half-inch of coarse salt on the sheet holds the curved shells level so the liquor stays in, and it holds heat evenly. Rock salt or coarse kosher salt both work; it can be dried and reused.
"The deep one"Oysters have one cupped shell and one flat. Shuck, cut the muscle free so the oyster sits loose, discard the flat shell, and leave the oyster and its liquor in the cup.
ParmesanGrate it yourself from a real block. Pre-grated cheese is usually dusted with an anti-caking agent (commonly powdered cellulose), which tends to stay gritty rather than melting into the crumbs.
CrumbsDry, fine crumbs; the recipe specifies nothing beyond "bread-crumbs," though a nineteenth-century kitchen would most likely have grated and sieved stale bread. Coarse fresh crumbs stay soft in eight minutes; panko browns well if you crush it finer.
QuantityThe original gives none. Figure six oysters per person as a first course, and about 1 tablespoon melted butter with a teaspoon each of crumbs and parmesan for every six shells.
ServingWiping the shell bottoms matters: salt clinging to the underside otherwise ends up on the napkin and in the next mouthful. The recipe lays the shells on napkins to serve, which will also keep them from sliding.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) collects thirty-odd years of cooking at Delmonico's in New York, and its oyster chapters are unusually long because the city's oyster supply was then enormous and cheap — beds ran the length of the Hudson estuary and Long Island Sound, and oyster cellars were everyday eating rather than luxury. What Ranhofer does here is apply a plain French gratiné — butter, parsley, crumbs, parmesan, hot oven — to a local abundance, which is broadly how The Epicurean works throughout. The salt-bed trick for steadying shells is still standard in restaurant kitchens; it appears in French practice for oysters, snails and any dish served in its own irregular container. The neighbouring entries in the section, for mussel shells and for oysters in béchamel, show the same shell being treated as a serving vessel three different ways.