Cream Oysters on the Half-shell.
Pour into your inner saucepan a cup of hot water, another of milk, and one of cream, with a little salt. Set into a kettle of hot water until it boils, when stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter and a little salt, with white pepper. Take from the fire and add two heaping tablespoonfuls of arrow-root, rice-flour, or corn-starch, wet with cold milk. By this time your shells should be washed and buttered, and a fine oyster laid within each. Of course, it is selon les régles to use oyster-shells for this purpose; but you will find clam-shells more roomy and manageable, because more regular in shape. Range these closely in a large baking-pan, propping them with clean pebbles or fragments of shell, if they do not seem inclined to retain their contents. Stir the cream very hard and fill up each shell with a spoon, taking care not to spill any in the pan. Bake five or six minutes in a hot oven after the shells become warm. Serve on the shell. Some substitute oyster-liquor for the water in the mixture, and use all milk instead of cream.