But epicureans and laymen alike are agreed on one point, and that is the way to bake oysters so that they are worthy of a place on any table. Put into a small lined stewpan a quarter of a pound of butter and one teacupful of cream, stirring it well over a quick fire till hot. Add a wineglass of sherry, a tablespoonful of anchovy sauce, and a skimpy sprinkling of cayenne and grated lemon peel. Stir over the fire till it bubbles once. Then pour half of the mixture into a baking dish. Lay the oysters on it, besprinkle them with a scanty covering of bread-crumbs and grated Parmesan cheese, with salt and pepper. Pour the remainder of the cream over all and brown to a good color.
Once one gets in the way of baking oysters as herein prescribed, one’s recipe for scalloped oysters, no matter how true and tried, will be lost sight of.
Oyster Stew with Cream
And the same fate will likely befall one’s rule for making an oyster stew, provided one adopts this suggestion for preparing oysters with cream. In the first place there should be put into a saucepan a pint of cream with a tiny piece of onion and a little mace tied up in a muslin bag. When the cream boils thicken it with a tablespoonful of flour mixed with two tablespoonfuls of cream. Heat a quart of oysters, with their liquor and sufficient salt. Then drain and put them into a dish which is to be sent to table; pour the cream over them, removing the onion and mace. With the dish serve toasted bread or biscuit.
Devilled Fried Oysters
Undoubtedly all your friends are ready to take oath that you do have at your table the very best fried oysters they ever tasted. But the next time that you regale them with the dish, let the oysters be devilled and then fried. Wipe the oysters perfectly dry and lay them on a flat dish. Have a goodly supply of butter at just the melting point, mix with it a little salt, a suspicion of cayenne, and a certainty of lemon juice; pour this over the oysters and leave them in it for at least ten minutes. Then roll them in a paper of cracker crumbs or sifted bread-crumbs; dip them into beaten egg, then into the crumbs again, and fry in boiling lard.
Stuffed Fried Oysters
Or you can make a dish of fried oysters even more elaborate if you will chop six ounces of the white meat of any fowl with one ounce of fat salt pork, pound it in a mortar till your stock of patience threatens to strike, then chop a few truffles to the size of peas, and add them with a little white pepper to the chopped meat. Have four dozen oysters wiped dry, and with a sharp knife make an opening in the side of each one; fill the holes with the mixture. Dip the oysters in crumbs, then in egg, again in the crumbs, and fry.
Oysters, Celery Roast
Now see to it that your guests don’t exhaust their pet adjectives on either of these dishes. They will need at least a good round dozen of superlatives after an experience with a celery roast of oysters. And this is the way the story goes: Have ready some dainty slices of bread, toasted, with the crusts removed. Wipe dry and broil some of the smallest oysters you can get; broil till they begin to shrivel all round, then put them on the toast. Sprinkle a little salt over them; cover them with some finely chopped celery. Salt the celery a bit also. Have ready cream heated, but not boiled, and pour it over the whole. Serve it as hot as possible, and rejoice in the fact that you have demonstrated how divine a thing an oyster may be made.