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Oysters in Cream
(German fashion.) Drain 24 oysters, add the juice of a lemon, 1 ounce of butter, salt, and pepper and bring to a boil. Melt 1 ounce of butter, add 2 teaspoonfuls of flour, 1/2 pint of white stock, a spoonful of mushroom ketchup, and cook and stir 5 minutes. Blend the yolks of 2 eggs with 1/2 cup of cream or milk, add to the sauce and pour over the oysters.
A quick oyster fricassee finished with an egg-and-cream liaison. Everything depends on keeping both the oysters and the finished sauce below a boil.
- Do not boil the oysters"Bring to a boil" here means bring the pan just to the point of simmering, at which the oyster edges ruffle. That takes roughly a minute; held longer they shrink and turn rubbery. Lift them out with a slotted spoon and keep them warm while the sauce is made.
- The liaison must not boil eitherOnce the egg yolks and cream go in, the sauce can only be warmed through, around 175F. A boil will scramble the yolks and break the sauce. Temper by whisking a ladle of hot sauce into the yolk mixture first, then returning it off the heat.
- Half a pint of stockIn this American book that is one cup (8 fl oz). With 2 teaspoons of flour to a cup of liquid the sauce is deliberately thin; it thickens further when the yolks warm.
- White stockA pale unbrowned veal or chicken stock. Unsalted chicken stock is the practical stand-in, and it should be unsalted because the oysters and their liquor bring plenty of salt.
- Mushroom ketchupA thin, dark, salty mushroom-and-spice condiment, not tomato ketchup. It is still sold by British grocers; a teaspoon of soy sauce plus a few drops of Worcestershire gives a comparable savoury depth.
- Save the liquorThe recipe drains the oysters and discards nothing else worth having, but the strained liquor is the best flavouring in the dish. Add a spoonful or two to the sauce and cut the stock accordingly.
- Two ounces of butter totalOne ounce (2 tablespoons) goes with the oysters, a second ounce with the flour for the roux. Both are weights, and an ounce of butter is a quarter stick.
- YieldTwenty-four oysters serve four as a first course, or two over toast or rice as a light supper. Serve at once; the sauce will not hold or reheat.
Adelaide Keen's With a Saucepan Over the Sea (1902) collected dishes from foreign kitchens and labelled them by nation, which is why a plain oyster fricassee arrives tagged "German fashion" -- a period habit of national attribution that often told readers more about the compiler than about any regional tradition. The technique itself is standard European cookery of the day: a light roux moistened with white stock and finished with a yolk-and-cream liaison, the same finish used for blanquettes and fricassees. Mushroom ketchup, the one distinctly Anglo-American touch, was a staple bottled seasoning in the nineteenth century, in general use before tomato ketchup and valued for the savoury depth cooks now reach for soy or Worcestershire to supply. Oysters at the turn of the century were cheap and abundant on both American coasts, and cookbooks of the period call for two dozen without comment.