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Relish for Raw Oysters
Two tablespoonfuls finely chopped white onions, a teaspoonful made mustard, a dozen drops tabasco sauce, half a teaspoonful of salt, a tablespoonful of horseradish, a saltspoonful of white pepper, and a gill of white vinegar. Mix, let stand a few moments and put a very little on each oyster.
A mignonette-style dressing built on vinegar, onion and heat rather than the modern lemon wedge. The measurements are all small and the archaic ones are easy to convert.
- A gillHalf a cup, 4 fluid ounces. This is by far the largest volume in the recipe and it makes the relish a thin, spoonable liquid rather than a paste.
- SaltspoonfulA saltspoon was the smallest spoon on the table, roughly a quarter teaspoon. So: 1/4 teaspoon white pepper.
- "Made mustard"Prepared mustard from a jar, not dry mustard powder. A smooth English or Dijon-style mustard is probably the closest modern match; if you only have powder, use rather less -- about a third as much -- and slake it in a little of the vinegar first.
- HorseradishThe period expectation is freshly grated root or bottled horseradish in vinegar, not creamed horseradish sauce. Creamed versions will cloud the relish and dull the bite.
- White vinegarDistilled white vinegar reads as harsh now. Plain white wine vinegar gives the same clean acidity with less of a pickling edge, which is what a mignonette does today.
- Let it standA few moments is the minimum. Twenty to thirty minutes lets the onion lose its raw sting and the vinegar draw out its sweetness; much longer and the onion goes limp and the whole thing tastes pickled.
- "A very little on each oyster"Take this literally. Roughly a quarter teaspoon per oyster, applied at the last moment before eating, or the vinegar begins to firm the flesh and the horseradish overwhelms the brine.
- YieldAbout three-quarters of a cup. It keeps a couple of days covered in the refrigerator, though the tabasco and onion both fade.
- Buying the oystersThe relish is not a preservative and does nothing to the oysters beyond seasoning them. Buy from a supplier who can show a shellfish tag, keep them cold, and shuck to order.
Vinegar-and-onion dressings for raw shellfish are old and widespread; the French mignonette, essentially shallot, cracked pepper and vinegar, is the version that survived into modern oyster bars, and this American relish is a close cousin with mustard and horseradish added. What helps date the page is the tabasco: Edmund McIlhenny's Louisiana pepper sauce went on the market in the late 1860s, and by the turn of the century it appears regularly in American cookbooks, measured out in drops the way earlier books measured cayenne in grains.