Home › The World's Kitchen › Oysters, Baltimore
Oysters, Baltimore
Wipe thirty-six large, fresh-opened oysters, season with a teaspoon salt and a half teaspoon pepper, then roll in a tablespoon oil on a plate, arrange on a double broiler and briskly broil them for three minutes on each side. Prepare six toasts, trim off crusts, place on a hot dish, place oysters on top, pour a maitre d'hotel butter over and serve.
A simple grill-and-toast dish from Alfred Fried's 1929 International Cook Book. The only real difficulty is that the timing will ruin the oysters if followed literally.
- Cut the cooking timeSix minutes over direct heat turns shucked oysters into rubber. Under a hot broiler or over live coals they need about 1 to 2 minutes a side, and are done the moment the edges ruffle and curl.
- "Double broiler"Not a double boiler. This is a hinged wire broiler basket that clamps the food between two grids so it can be flipped in one motion over coals. A fine-mesh grill basket does the same job; on a modern range, lay the oysters on a preheated shallow pan under the broiler element and turn them with tongs.
- Oysters and their liquorOysters -- Thirty-six large shucked oysters is roughly a quart. Wiping means blotting them dry on a towel; wet oysters steam rather than brown.
- Maitre d'hotel butterSoftened butter worked with chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Make it in advance, roll it in paper and chill, then cut coins to melt over the hot oysters rather than pouring it as a sauce.
- The toastSix slices, crusts off, and it must be dry and firm enough to take the butter and oyster liquor without collapsing. Toast it while the oysters cook and keep the platter hot.
- SeasoningA full teaspoon of salt across three dozen oysters is on the heavy side, since the oysters carry their own salinity. Season lightly, taste one, and finish at the table.
- YieldSix toasts, six oysters each, as a first course or light supper dish.
Baltimore's claim on the oyster was industrial as much as culinary: from the mid-nineteenth century the city's packing houses handled the Chesapeake harvest, canning and shipping oysters inland by rail in quantities that made them a cheap national food rather than a coastal luxury. That abundance is why a recipe can open by calling for thirty-six of them without comment. The finish, maitre d'hotel butter, is standard French kitchen vocabulary of the period, and pairing it with an American regional name reads as a local dish given a professional hotel dressing. The Chesapeake beds were already in steep decline, and the era of oysters by the quart was closing.