Or, you may take large oysters out of their shells, dredge them lightly with flour, lay them separately on a wire gridiron, and broil them. Serve them up on large dishes, with a morsel of fresh butter laid on each oyster.
SCOLLOPED OYSTERS.—
Drain the liquor from a sufficient quantity of fine fresh oysters; and season them with blades of mace, grated nutmeg, and a little cayenne. Lay about a dozen of them in the bottom of a deep dish. Cut some slices of wheat bread, and put them to soak in a pan of the oyster liquor (previously strained.)
Soak the bread till it is soft throughout, but not dissolved. Cover the oysters in the bottom of the dish, with some slices of the soaked bread, (drained from the liquor,) and lay upon the bread a few small bits of nice fresh butter. Then put in another layer of seasoned oysters; then another layer of soaked bread with bits of butter dispersed upon it. Repeat this with more layers of oysters, soaked bread, and bits of butter, till the dish is full, finishing with a close layer of bread on the top. Set this into a hot oven, and bake it, a short time only, or till it is well browned on the surface. Oysters require but little cooking, and this bread has had one baking already. The liquid that is about the bread is sufficient. It requires no more.
Scolloped oysters may be cooked in large, clean, clam-shells and served up on great dishes.
PICKLED OYSTERS.—
Take a hundred fine large oysters—set them over the fire in their own liquor—add two ounces of nice fresh butter, and simmer them slowly for ten minutes; skimming them well. If they boil fast and long, they will become hard and shrivelled. Take them off the fire and strain from them their liquor; spread the oysters out on large dishes, and place them in the air to cool fast, or lay them in a broad pan of cold water. This renders them firm. Strain the liquor, and then mix with it an equal quantity of the best and purest clear cider-vinegar. Season (if the oysters are fresh,) with a small tea-spoonful of salt, two dozen whole pepper-corns, and a table-spoonful of powdered mace and nutmeg, mixed. Let the liquor boil till it is reduced to little more than enough to cover the oysters well. Put the oysters into a tureen, or a broad stone jar. Pour the hot liquor over them, and let them grow quite cold before they are eaten. You may give them a fine tinge of pale pink color by adding to the liquor (while boiling,) a little prepared cochineal.