No. 333

Oyster Soup, American Style

Soupe aux Huitres a l'Americaine

For Ten Persons.—Put sixty medium oysters including their juice, and as much water, into a tin saucepan with a perforated cover (Fig. 186), specially made for this soup; season with salt and pepper, and set them on a quick fire; as soon ass the steam escapes through the holes on the cover, remove the saucepan from the fire, and pour into it two and a half gills of milk, and two and a half ounces of butter, then serve. In those establishments whose specialty is oysters, before serving oyster soup, they place before each person a plateful of finely minced raw cabbage (cold slaw); this cabbage is to be seasoned with salt, pepper, vinegar, and tomato catsup.

← No. 332 Oxtail Soup a la Soyer Soups & Broths No. 334 Oyster Soup a la Cruyst →

For the Modern Kitchen

A three-minute soup that lives or dies by when the pan comes off the heat. Ranhofer gives no clock time at all — the escaping steam is the timer, and it arrives fast.

The hinge: pull it the moment steam blowsThe perforated lid is a signal device, not a cooking aid. Steam escaping means the liquor has come to a boil and the oysters have just plumped and ruffled at the edges; Ranhofer gives no clock time, and how long it takes depends on the volume in the pan. Any lid and your eyes do the same job; oysters held at a simmer past that point turn rubbery and shed water into the broth.
Gills and ouncesTwo and a half gills of milk is 1 1/4 cups. Two and a half ounces of butter is 5 tablespoons. Both go in off the heat, exactly as the recipe directs — the pan is pulled from the fire first, and returning it to the flame risks curdling the milk against the salty oyster liquor.
Sixty oystersFor ten people, six oysters each. Shucked oysters are sold by volume today: sixty medium oysters is roughly a quart, liquor included. "As much water" is ambiguous — it may mean water equal to the liquor, or equal to the oysters and juice together.
Strain the liquorRanhofer assumes a kitchen shucking to order. Container oysters and hand-shucked both carry shell grit; pour the liquor through a fine sieve before it goes in the pan, and hold back the oysters until the liquid is hot.
Salt with restraintOyster liquor is already saline and the quantity of butter adds more. Season at the end, after the milk has gone in, or the finished soup will be flatly salty rather than sweet.
"A quick fire"High heat, uncovered burner. The point is to bring the small volume of liquid up fast so the oysters spend as little time as possible in hot water.
The cold slawThe accompaniment is a plate of finely shredded raw cabbage dressed with salt, pepper, vinegar and tomato ketchup — no mayonnaise, no sugar. It reads oddly now but it is a sharp, cheap foil to a rich dairy soup, and it is how oyster houses actually served it.
ServingRanhofer gives it as ten portions; he states no volume. It does not hold and does not reheat; ladle it out immediately.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is his attempt to set down a whole professional repertoire, French in structure but shot through with American dishes he could not ignore. This is one of them: he gives it a French title, then describes a preparation with no roux, no stock and no garnish, which is to say nothing French about it at all. Oysters were the cheap street food of nineteenth-century New York, sold by the plate in cellar saloons and oyster houses along Canal and Fulton Streets, and the perforated-lid pan he specifies is described only as "specially made for this soup." The cabbage with vinegar and ketchup is the most telling detail here — a note copied from working oyster bars rather than from any grand kitchen, and the reason the recipe is worth reading.