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Cases of Oysters, Au Gratin
Carefully oil the outside of six paper cases. Cut twenty-four large, freshly opened oysters into four quarters each, place them in a saucepan with their own liquor and a half gill white wine. Season with half teaspoon salt and saltspoon cayenne pepper, then boil for two minutes. Heat one and a half tablespoons butter in a saucepan, add one finely chopped green pepper and gently brown for five minutes, then mix in two and a half tablespoons flour while heating for half a minute. Strain the oyster liquor into this pan, adding one gill cream, half gill milk, two tablespoons sherry, two saltspoons salt, a saltspoon each cayenne and grated nutmeg. Mix well until it comes to a boil, then add the oysters. Mix well, until it comes to a boil, then add the oysters. Mix well, cook gently for two minutes, then divide evenly the preparation into the six cases. Sprinkle evenly over a tablespoon of grated Parmesan cheese, place the cases on a tin and set in the oven for ten minutes. Remove, dress on a dish with a folded napkin and serve.
A rich creamed-oyster gratin from the era when individual servings arrived in oiled paper cases. The measurements are workable once translated, but the oyster timing needs attention.
- The hinge: stop cooking the oystersThe oysters are already firm after their two-minute poach; the second two minutes in the sauce plus ten minutes in the oven will make them tough. Poach them barely 30 seconds to release their liquor, then fold them into the finished sauce off the heat and let the oven do the rest.
- A duplicated lineThe text repeats "Mix well, until it comes to a boil, then add the oysters" — a compositor's error. Add the oysters once, at the end.
- Gills and saltspoonsA gill is 1/2 cup, so half a gill is 1/4 cup. A saltspoon is 1/4 teaspoon. That gives 1/4 cup white wine, 1/2 cup cream, 1/4 cup milk, and a total of about 1/2 teaspoon cayenne across the dish — assertive by modern taste; a quarter of that is plenty.
- SaltThe combined 1/2 teaspoon plus 1/2 teaspoon, added to oyster liquor and Parmesan, will read as very salty. Salt the sauce at the end instead, after tasting the strained liquor.
- Paper casesThese were stiff pleated paper cups, oiled on the outside as the recipe directs, presumably to keep them from scorching. Ramekins, small gratin dishes, or scrubbed scallop shells all work; a 6-oz ramekin holds one portion.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. Ten minutes at 425F browns the Parmesan without overcooking the filling; run it under the broiler for the last minute if the top is pale.
- Green pepperOne green bell pepper, finely chopped and softened five minutes in butter. Do not let it brown hard — the recipe's "gently brown" means sweated to translucent with a little colour.
- Yield and serviceSix small first-course portions from two dozen oysters. The folded napkin on the platter was standard service dressing of the period; a warmed plate serves as well today.
Individual dishes served "in cases" were a fixture of hotel and restaurant cooking in the decades either side of 1900, when a kitchen could turn out dozens of identical portions in pleated paper cups and send them to the table looking composed. The International Cook Book came out of that professional world, and the method here is straight chef's practice: poach the oysters in their own liquor and wine, build a velouté-style sauce on the strained liquor, enrich it with cream and sherry, then glaze with Parmesan. Oysters were still cheap and abundant on both American coasts at the time, which is why a book of this vintage can call for two dozen large ones as a starter for six without comment.