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Fried Oysters, Tomato Sauce
Lightly roll in flour twenty-four large, fresh-opened oysters, dip them in beaten egg, lightly roll in fresh bread crumbs, arrange in a frying basket and fry in boiling fat for five minutes. Remove, drain on a towel, sprinkle a teaspoon salt over them, dress on a hot dish, decorate with six quarters of lemon and a little parsley greens and serve with a gill of hot tomato sauce separately.
A straightforward breaded fry, with one timing that needs correcting and one archaic measure to convert.
- Five minutes is far too longBreaded oysters in fat at 375F are done in 1 to 2 minutes, as soon as the crumb coat turns deep gold. Five minutes shrinks them to rubbery nubs and the liquor cooks out. Fry in two or three batches so the fat does not drop below temperature.
- "Boiling fat"Fat does not boil; the phrase means fat hot enough to bubble vigorously when food enters, roughly 360-375F. Below 350F the crumbs absorb grease, above 390F they scorch before the oyster heats through.
- A gill of tomato sauceHalf a cup, served in a separate boat. That is a modest amount for two dozen oysters, so double it if your table likes sauce.
- Oyster size and countTwenty-four large oysters serves four as a first course, two as a main. Shuck them yourself or buy freshly shucked oysters in their liquor rather than the small pre-breaded kind.
- Dry them firstThe recipe assumes oysters straight from the shell. Blot each one on a towel before flouring, or the coating slides off in the fat.
- The frying basketA wire basket lowered into a deep pan of fat. A deep skillet with two inches of oil and a spider or slotted spoon works the same way; the basket just makes it possible to lift the whole batch at once.
- Salt timingSprinkle the teaspoon of salt the moment they leave the fat, while the crust is still glossy, so it sticks. Salted later it simply falls to the plate.
- Drain properlyA folded towel is what the original specifies and it works, though a wire rack over a sheet pan keeps the underside from steaming soft while you fry the second batch.
Fried oysters belong to a period when oysters were cheap, plentiful and eaten in enormous quantity on both sides of the Atlantic — American oyster beds in particular supplied a market that ran from street stalls to hotel dining rooms. The treatment here is classic restaurant technique: à l'anglaise breading (flour, egg, crumb), deep fat, a garnish of lemon quarters and parsley, and a sauce passed separately rather than poured over, which keeps the crust crisp. The sauce here is tomato rather than a rich French reduction. The five-minute fry is far longer than a modern kitchen would allow.