Take some boil’d pease, strain them and put them in a pipkin with some capers, some sweet herbs finely chopped, some salt, and butter; then have some great oysters fryed with sweet herbs, and grosly chopped, put them to the strained pease, stew them together, serve them on a clean scowred dish on fine carved fippets, and garnish the dish with grated bread.
[ Otherways.]
Take a quart of great oysters, parboil them in their own liquor, and stew them in a pipkin with some capers, large mace, a faggot of sweet herbs, salt, and butter, being finely stewed, serve them on slices of dryed French bread, round the oysters slic’t lemon, and on the pottage boil’d spinage, minced, and buttered, but first pour on the broth.
[ To make a Hash of Oysters.]
Take three quarts of great oysters, parboil them, and save their liquor, then mince 2 quarts of them very fine, and put them a stewing in a pipkin with a half pint of
white wine, a good big onion or two, some large mace, a grated nutmeg, some chesnuts, and pistaches, and three or 4 spoonfuls of wine-vinegar, a quarter of a pound of good sweet butter, some oyster liquor, pepper, salt, and a faggot of sweet herbs; stew the foresaid together upon a soft fire the space of half an hour, then take the other oysters, and season them with pepper, salt and nutmeg, fry them in batter made of fine flour, egg, salt, and cream, make one half of it green with juyce of spinage, and sweet herbs chopped small, dip them in these batters, and fry them in clarified butter, being fried keep them warm in an oven; then have a fine clean large dish, lay slices of French bread all over the bottom of the dish, scald and steep the bread with some gravy of the hash, or oyster-liquor, & white wine boil’d together; dish the hash all over the slices of bread, lay on that the fryed oysters, chesnuts, and pistaches; then beat up a lear or sauce of butter, juyce of lemon or oranges, five or six, a little white-wine, the yolks of 3 or 4 eggs, and pour on this sauce over the hash with some slic’t lemon, and lemon-peel; garnish the dish with grated bread, being dryed and searsed, some pistaches, chesnuts, carved lemons, & fryed oysters.
Sometimes you may use mushrooms boild in water, salt, sweet herbs—large mace, cloves, bayleaves, two or three cloves of garlick, then take them up, dip them in batter & fry them brown, make sauce for them with claret, and the juyce of two or three oranges, salt, butter, the juyce of horse-raddish roots beaten and strained, grated nutmeg, and pepper, beat them up thick with the yolks of two or three eggs, do this sauce in a frying-pan, shake them well together, and pour it on the hash with the mushrooms.
[ To marinate great oysters to be eaten hot.]
Take three quarts of great oysters ready opened, parboil
them in their own liquor, then take them out and wash them in warm water, wipe them dry and flour them, fry them crisp in a frying-pan with three pints of sweet sallet oyl, put them in a dish, and set them before the fire, or in a warm oven; then make sauce with white wine; wine-vinegar, four or five blades of large mace, two or three slic’t nutmegs, two races of slic’t ginger, some twenty cloves, twice as much of whole pepper, and some salt; boil all the foresaid spices in a pipkin, with a quart of white wine, a pint of wine vinegar, rosemary, tyme, winter savory, sweet marjoram, bay leaves, sage, and parlsey, the tops of all these herbs about an inch long; then take three or four good lemons, slic’t dish up the oysters in a clean scowred dish, pour on the broth, herbs, and spices on them, lay on the slic’t lemons, and run it over with some of the oyl they were fried in, and serve them up hot. Or fry them in clarified butter.