[ To souce Oysters to serve hot or cold.]
Take a gallon of great oysters ready opened, parboil them in their own liquor, and being well parboil’d, put them into a cullender, and save the liquor; then wash the oysters in warm water from the grounds & grit, set them by, and make a pickle for them with a pint of white-wine, & half a pint of wine vinegar, put it in a pipkin with some large mace, slic’t nutmegs, slic’t ginger, whole pepper, three or four cloves, and some salt, give it four or five warms and put in the oysters into the warm pickle with two slic’t lemons, and lemon-peels; cover the pipkin close to keep in the spirits, spices, and liquor.
[ To roast Oysters.]
Strain the liquor from the oysters, wash them very clean
and give them a scald in boiling liquor or water; then cut small lard of a fat salt eel, & lard them with a very small larding-prick, spit them on a small spit for that service; then beat two or three yolks of eggs with a little grated bread, or nutmeg, salt, and a little rosemary & tyme minced very small; when the oysters are hot at the fire, baste them continually with these ingredients, laying them pretty warm at the fire. For the sauce boil a little white-wine, oyster-liquor, a sprig of tyme, grated bread, and salt, beat it up thick with butter, and rub the dish with a clove of garlick.
[ To roast Oysters otherways.]
Take two quarts of large great oysters, and parboil them in there own liquor, then take them out, wash them from the dregs, and wipe them dry on a clean cloth; then haue slices of a fat salt eel, as thick as a half crown peice, season the oysters with nutmeg, and salt, spit them on a fine small wooden spit for that purpose, spit first a sage leafe, then a slice of eel, and then an oyster, thus do till they be all spitted, and bind them to another spit with packthread, baste them with yolks of eggs, grated bread and stripped time, and lay them to a warm fire with here and there a clove in them; being finely roasted make sauce with the gravy, that drops from them, blow off the fat, and put to it some claret wine, the juyce of an orange, grated nutmeg, and a little butter, beat it up thick together with some of the oyster-liquor, and serve them on this sauce with slices of orange.
[ Otherways.]
Take the greatest oysters you can get, being opened parboil them in their own liquor, save the liquor, & wash the oysters in some water, wipe them dry, & being cold
lard them with eight or ten lardons through each oyster, the lard being first seasoned with cloves, pepper, & nutmeg, beaten very small; being larded, spit them upon two wooden scuers, bind them to an iron spit and rost them, baste them with anchove sauce made of some of the oyster-liquor, let them drip in it, and being enough bread them with the crust of a roul grated, then dish them, blow the fat off the gravy, put it to the oysters, and wring on them the juyce of a lemon.