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Oysters, Herman
Prepare half the quantity only of spinach veloute. Open thirty-six good-sized fresh oysters and keep them on their deep shells, being careful to detach eyes from shells. Season evenly with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon paprika, squeeze over juice of a lemon, evenly spread spinach over oysters and place them in a small roasting pan. Sprinkle a little grated Parmesan cheese over, set in oven for fifteen minutes, remove, dress on a dish and serve.
A baked oyster in the Rockefeller family, and the whole dish hangs on a component recipe printed elsewhere in the book. Read the velouté note first.
- Spinach velouté, half quantitySpinach veloute, half quantity -- This is a cross-reference to a component recipe printed elsewhere in the book: a veloute-style sauce (butter and flour cooked to a blond roux, moistened with light stock) enriched with finely chopped or pureed cooked spinach. It wants to be thick enough to sit on a half-shell without running off.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given at all; the book simply says "set in oven." A hot oven, in the region of 450F, suits the dish: the topping colors while the oysters set. Lower heat risks the oysters watering out before the cheese takes color.
- Fifteen minutes is the outer limitLarge oysters on the deep shell under a blanket of sauce will be done well before that in a hot oven, when the edges ruffle and the sauce bubbles at the rim. Taken literally, fifteen minutes risks toughening them.
- "Detach eyes from shells"The eye is the adductor muscle, the tough plug that holds the oyster to the shell. Cut it free with the knife tip so the oyster sits loose in its liquor, otherwise it stays anchored and tears when eaten.
- Keep the shells levelBed the deep half-shells so none tips and spills its liquor; rock salt or crumpled foil in the pan does this and holds heat besides. The book specifies only "a small roasting pan."
- Seasoning proportionsA teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of paprika are spread across all thirty-six oysters, not each. Oysters and their liquor are already saline, and the velouté is seasoned, so go lighter than the figures suggest and taste the sauce first.
- LemonThe juice of one lemon over three dozen oysters is a few drops each. Squeeze it on before the spinach so it seasons the oyster rather than the topping.
- YieldNo yield is stated; thirty-six oysters would serve about six as a first course, four generously. Serve at once.
Baked oysters on the half-shell under a green sauce belong to a family that radiates out from Oysters Rockefeller, created by Jules Alciatore at Antoine's in New Orleans in 1899 and named, so the restaurant's own account goes, for the richness of the sauce rather than for any Rockefeller who ate it. Its success bred imitators, and by the 1900s hotel and club kitchens were turning out house versions distinguished by a name and a small change of garnish, which is exactly what "Oysters, Herman" is: spinach bound into a velout e3 instead of the pounded herb butter said to have gone into the original, whose composition is in fact disputed, finished with Parmesan. Who Herman was is not recorded here, though such names are often said to commemorate a chef, a head waiter, or a regular patron whose order became fixed on the menu. The dish also reflects the era's oyster economy, when Atlantic and Gulf beds supplied American cities so cheaply that three dozen was an unremarkable quantity for a single course.