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To Broil Oysters
To broil oysters, dry them, dip in melted butter and roll in cracker crumbs. Place on a buttered broiler for two minutes on each side.
Three lines and no quantities, which is typical of the period's shorter entries. The technique is sound; what needs translating is the equipment.
- Dry them properlyThis is the hinge. Shucked oysters carry a lot of liquor, and wet oysters steam rather than brown, and the crumb coating slides off. Drain them, then blot on a towel until the surface looks matte.
- What a broiler wasIn older usage a "broiler" is often a hinged wire grid that clamps the food and is held over coals or set at the fire of a solid-fuel range, which is why the recipe says two minutes per side. Under a modern overhead broiler there is no second side to turn to; use a preheated cast-iron pan or a stovetop grill pan, or set them on a rack close under the element and give the pan a shake rather than a flip.
- Cracker crumbsMost likely plain soda or water crackers, crushed fine, rather than seasoned breadcrumbs. Saltines crushed to coarse sand are the closest supermarket equivalent.
- Two minutes is rightThe timing does not overcook them. The edges should just ruffle and the flesh firm; another minute and they turn tough and shrink to nothing.
- Size mattersUse large oysters, the ones sold as select or standard rather than small cocktail sizes. Small ones overcook before the crumbs colour.
- Heat, highWhatever you use needs to be hot before the oysters touch it, a pan just short of smoking. A slow start renders the butter out and leaves the crumbs pale and greasy.
Broiling was one of several ways nineteenth-century American cooks handled a cheap and abundant shellfish: oysters were fried, scalloped, stewed, roasted in the shell and pickled, and city oyster cellars sold them by the plate very cheaply by present-day standards. The dip-in-butter-and-crumb treatment is the same coating used for fried oysters, adapted to the gridiron so the cook did not need a kettle of fat. The oyster loaf, a hollowed roll packed with cooked oysters, was sold as late-night food in New Orleans and other port cities, where it is often said to have been carried home by husbands as a peace offering. The extreme brevity of the entry assumes a reader who already knew how to shuck and how to manage a solid-fuel range.