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Oyster Shortcake
Fish • 1 quart oysters 2 teaspoonfuls baking powder 1/2 cupful Crisco 2 cupfuls flour ½ teaspoonful salt 3/4 cupful milk 2 tablespoonfuls cornstarch 1/4 cupful cream Salt and pepper to taste Mix flour, baking powder and 1/2 teaspoonful salt, then sift twice, work in Crisco with tips of fingers, add milk gradually. The dough should be just soft enough to handle. Toss on floured baking board, divide into two parts, pat lightly and roll out. Place in two shallow Criscoed cake tins and bake in quick oven fifteen minutes. Spread them with butter. Moisten cornstarch with cream, put into pan with oysters and seasonings and make very hot. Allow to cook a few minutes then pour half over one crust, place other crust on top and pour over rest of oysters. Serve at once.
Sufficient for one large shortcake.
A biscuit shortcake split and filled with creamed oysters rather than fruit. The dough is straightforward; the oysters are where it goes wrong.
- Oysters need two minutes, not a fewShucked oysters are done the moment their edges ruffle and they plump, roughly two minutes in the hot cream. "Allow to cook a few minutes" past that point shrinks them to rubber and squeezes out liquid that thins the sauce.
- Quick ovenRoughly 400-450F. The rounds bake in about 15 minutes, until risen and pale gold on top.
- CriscoThe book is an advertisement for it, so it appears in nearly every recipe. Any solid vegetable shortening works, and lard or cold butter cut in the same way gives a better-flavoured biscuit. "Criscoed" tins simply means greased.
- A quart of oystersThat is a volume measure of shucked oysters with their liquor, weighing about 2 lb as measured; drained, perhaps a pound and a half of meats, and anywhere from about 30 to 60 depending on size. Reserve the liquor; the sauce here is very short on liquid without it.
- The salt is splitThe ingredient list gives 1½ teaspoonfuls of salt, but the method uses only ½ teaspoonful, in the dough. The balance may be intended for the oysters, though the list already covers those with "salt and pepper to taste", and the figure may simply be a misprint.
- Cornstarch and creamTwo tablespoons of cornstarch in a quarter cup of cream is a stiff paste, not a slurry. Loosen it with some of the strained oyster liquor before it goes in the pan, and add the oysters after the sauce has thickened so they are not overcooked while it does.
- TinsThe book gives no size; two shallow 8- or 9-inch round cake tins suit two cupfuls of flour divided in half. The dough is a biscuit dough, so handle it as little as possible after the milk goes in.
- YieldOne large shortcake serves four as a main course, six as a first course. It must go to the table immediately or the bottom crust turns to paste.
The Story of Crisco (1913) was published by Procter & Gamble to teach American cooks what to do with hydrogenated cottonseed oil, a product with no culinary tradition behind it. The recipes are therefore familiar dishes rewritten with Crisco in place of butter or lard, and oyster shortcake was a serviceable choice: oysters were cheap in this period and shipped inland by rail in barrels and cans, and savoury oyster dishes were staples of the household manuals of the day, alongside oyster pie, oyster patties and scalloped oysters. Building a savoury filling into a split biscuit shortcake was one way of stretching creamed meat, chicken or shellfish to feed a table, and it also let the company show off a shortening that was sold on being neutral in flavour, which mattered rather more in a dish tasting of oysters than in a fruit shortcake.