Serve with sippets.
Scalloped Oysters.
Put them with crumbs of bread, pepper, salt, nutmeg, and a bit of butter, in scallop shells or saucers, and bake them before the fire, in a Dutch oven.
Oyster Patties or small Pie.
As you open the oysters, separate them from the liquor, which strain; parboil them, after taking off the beards. Parboil sweetbreads, and cutting them in slices, lay them and the oysters in layers: season very lightly with salt, pepper, and mace. Then put half a teacup of liquor, and the same of gravy. Bake in a slow oven; and before you serve, put a teacup of cream, a little more oyster liquor and a cup of white gravy, all warmed, but not boiled. If for patties, the oysters should be cut in small dice, gently stewed, and seasoned as above, and put into the paste when ready for table.
Fried Oysters, to garnish boiled fish.
Make a batter of flour, milk, and eggs; season it a very little; dip the oysters in it, and fry them a fine yellow brown. A little nutmeg should be put into the seasoning, and a few crumbs of bread into the flour.
To pickle Oysters.
Wash four dozen of oysters in their own liquor; then strain, and in it simmer them till scalded enough: take them out and cover them. To the liquor put a few peppercorns, a blade of mace, a table spoonful of salt, three of white wine, and four of vinegar: simmer fifteen minutes; and when cold, pour it on the oysters, and keep them in a jar close covered.