Part 2
Beat up three eggs thoroughly; add half a pint of oyster-juice, a pepper-spoonful of cayenne, a saltspoonful of black pepper, a tablespoonful of salt, and a teaspoonful of English mustard. Work the mixture to a batter, and gradually add a gill of oil. Now comes the more particular part of the formula. Cover a board or part of a table with a layer of cracker-crumbs half an inch deep. Drain fifty oysters free from liquid, place them on the cracker-crumbs, and dredge over them more cracker-crumbs. See to it that one oyster is not on top of another. Pick up each oyster by its beard, and dip it in the batter. Have ready a quantity of bread-crumbs grated from the white part of stale bread; spread this out on the table, and after the oysters have been dipped in the batter lay them carefully on the bread-crumbs two inches apart. After they are all spread out, turn them over neatly, which will bread-crumb the other side. Dip them in the batter again by taking hold of the beard, and again spread them out on the bread-crumbs. Under no circumstances place one oyster on top of another, or in any way press them together; this would make them heavy. When the fat is so hot that the smoke from it would light a match, then fry them by again taking hold of the beard, one at a time, and dropping them into the fat. When they are dark brown, take them up, and strew over them a quantity of salt.
The secret is in carefully handling the oyster after it has been breaded. How differently New York restaurants serve fried oysters! In almost every eating place in the city, one sees piles of oysters covered with a batter that plainly shows the cook purposely pressed them between his hands. When served they look more like liver-pads than human food. Nothing short of a human ostrich could possibly digest them. The Philadelphia oyster, however, is a culinary poem.
=Curry of Oysters.=--Put an ounce of butter in a pan; add to it a teaspoon of curry-powder, and water enough to prevent burning. Put fifteen oysters in just water enough to cover them, simmer three minutes, and drain; thicken the broth with a teaspoonful of flour, salt to taste, stir this into the curry; add the oysters, simmer a moment, and serve with boiled rice.
=Pickled-Oyster Omelet.=--Rinse six spiced or pickled oysters in cold water. Divide an ounce of butter into little balls, and roll them in flour; put them in a saucepan, heat gradually, and whisk to a cream; add a gill of hot water, salt and pepper. Cut the oysters in two, and add to the butter. Prepare an omelet in the usual manner; before folding, add the oysters; turn out on a hot dish, and serve.
=Deviled Oysters on Toast.=--Mix together a heaping saltspoonful of mustard flour, half a saltspoonful each of white pepper and salt, and the yolk of one egg. Dip six oysters in the paste, then in fine crumbs, and broil over a moderate fire. When done, arrange on toast, and squeeze over them the juice of half a lemon.
=Pickled Oysters.=--A few pickled oysters may be served instead of clams during warm weather. Scald a quart of oysters a moment, drain, and put them in jars. To a pint of oyster liquor, add half a pint of hot water and half a pint of hot vinegar; pour over the oysters; add three cloves, four whole peppers, a small bit of mace, and a slice of lemon, to each jar. This will be sufficient for two ordinary fruit-jars.
=Scalloped Oysters.=--Put in the bottom of a yellow dish two ounces of sweet butter, divided into little pieces. Add a layer of raw oysters, and cover them with cracker-dust or bread-crumbs, and add salt and pepper to taste; another layer of oysters, and so on until the dish is full, the last or top layer to be crumbs, and between each layer there should be a small amount of butter. Moisten the ingredients with a liberal quantity of oyster liquid, put small butter balls on top of the dish, and bake a delicate brown color. Oysters were formerly baked in a scalloped or shell-shaped dish, hence the name.
=Oyster Salad.=--Boil two dozen small oysters for five minutes in water enough to cover them; add a little salt and a tablespoonful of vinegar; drain and cool. Put into a salad-bowl the centre leaves of two heads of cabbage lettuce, add the oysters whole, pour over them a mayonnaise; garnish with oyster-crabs, hard-boiled eggs, and, if liked, a few anchovies cut into fillets.
=Plain Fried Oysters.=--As a rule, fried oysters are not served as a breakfast dish, owing to the coating with which they are usually surrounded. Served plain, however, they are quite acceptable. Dry them well in a napkin, and roll them in a little flour to insure that they are quite dry, then cook them in a very little hot dripping.
Miss Parloa’s “New Cook-Book” says, “a quart of oysters is enough for a party of ten” (p. 118). There are from twenty to twenty-five oysters in a quart, rarely more than this.
=Oyster Toast.=--Select fifteen plump oysters; chop them fine, and add salt, pepper, and a suspicion of nutmeg. Beat up the yolks of two eggs with a gill of cream; whisk this into the simmering oysters. When set, pour the whole over slices of buttered toast.
=Oyster Omelet.=--Stew six oysters in their own liquor for five minutes; remove the oysters, and thicken the liquid with a walnut of butter rolled in flour; season with salt and cayenne; whisk this to a cream. Chop the oysters, and add them to the sauce; simmer until the sauce thickens. Beat up four eggs lightly, and add a tablespoonful of cream; turn out into a hot pan, and fry a light gold-color. Before folding the omelet entirely, place the oysters with part of the sauce within, and turn it over on a hot dish. The remainder of the sauce should be poured round it.
=Oysters Broiled.=--Rub the bars of a wire broiler with a little sweet butter; dry twelve large, plump oysters in a napkin, and place them on the broiler; brush a little butter over them, and broil over a fire free from flame and smoke. When done on both sides, arrange them neatly on toast; pour a little well-seasoned melted butter over them, and serve.
Do not bread-crumb oysters intend for broiling.
=Tripe with Oysters.=--Tripe, when properly prepared by a simple process, is very nutritious and easily digested.
Cut up half a pound of well-washed tripe; simmer for three-quarters of an hour in water slightly salted; take out the tripe; add to the broth a little butter rolled in flour, salt and pepper; add a little more flour if not thick enough. Return the tripe and a dozen oysters; simmer for a few minutes longer, and serve.
=Oysters en Brochette.=--Select one dozen choice oysters; plunge them into hot water a second to make them firm (this process is called blanching), then drain, and dip them into melted butter; arrange them on skewers with alternate layers of neatly sliced bacon; broil over a moderate fire. When done, add maitre-d’hôtel butter to them, and serve on the skewers.
=Fried Oysters.=--Beat up the yolks of four eggs with three tablespoonfuls of sweet oil, and season them with a teaspoonful of salt and a saltspoonful of cayenne pepper; beat up thoroughly. Dry twelve fat oysters on a napkin; dip them in the egg batter, then in cracker-dust; shake off the loose cracker-dust, dip them again in the egg batter, and lastly roll them in fine _bread-crumbs_. Fry in very hot fat, using fat enough to cover them. The oil gives them a nice flavor.
=Oyster and Canned Salmon Pie.=--One pound of best canned salmon, one pint of solid oysters, half a pint of oyster liquid; cover the bottom of the dish with neat pieces of the salmon, season with salt and pepper and an ounce of butter rolled in flour, add a few oysters, and so on until the ingredients are used. Pour in the liquid of both, and cover the top with paste. Bake in a moderate oven. There should be liquid enough to have the ingredients moist when served.
=Oyster Patties.=--Roll out a pound of light puff-paste, half an inch in thickness; cut it into rounds with a cake-cutter two inches in diameter; press a small cutter one inch in diameter, on each round, one-fourth of an inch deep. Place them on a buttered tin, brush a little beaten egg over them, and bake in a quick oven. When done, remove the centre and a little of the inside. Scald (or, as it is called, blanch) three dozen oysters; drain. Put into a saucepan two ounces of butter, whisk it to a cream; add a teaspoonful of flour, stir free from lumps; add a heaping saltspoonful of salt, and a pepperspoonful of white pepper; whisk into it half a pint each of hot cream and the oyster liquor; allow it to simmer a few minutes and to thicken; then add the oysters and a “squeeze” of lemon-juice; when hot fill the shells, and serve. If nutmeg is not objected to, a little may be used.
=Oysters à la Poulette.=--Blanch (scald) a dozen oysters in their own liquor; drain them, and add to the liquor, salt, half an ounce of butter, the juice of half a lemon, a gill of cream, and a teaspoonful of dissolved flour. Beat the yolk of one egg, and add to the sauce. Stir until the sauce thickens; place the oysters on a hot dish, pour the sauce over them, add a very little chopped parsley, and serve.
=Pie of Oysters and Scallops.=--Take one pint of fresh scallops, and wash them in cold water; drain, and dry them in a napkin. Cut a few slices of fat bacon in strips small enough to insert the ends in a larding-needle; lard the scallops with them, and dredge them slightly with flour. Select one quart of fat oysters; line a baking-dish with puff-paste; add the scallops and oysters in layers; season with salt, pepper, and a dash of mace. Divide an ounce of butter into little balls, roll them in flour, and put them between the layers; add the oyster liquor. Cover with a top crust; bake forty minutes in a moderate oven.
=Steamed Oysters.=--Wash and scrub the shells thoroughly, and rinse them off in cold water. Put them in a steamer, large or deep shell _down_. Put the steamer on top of a pot of boiling water; steam about six minutes, or until the shells separate. Have ready a hot dish containing melted butter seasoned with a dash of Worcestershire, lemon-juice, salt and cayenne. Remove them from the steamer with gloved hands, and pick out the oysters with a flat knife, saving all the juice possible. Dip the oysters in the butter as you open them, and the number one can eat is surprising.
=To serve Steamed Oysters.=--Steam them as in the foregoing recipe. At each guest’s place at table have ready little saucers containing a quantity of the hot melted butter. Remove the flat shell, and serve the oyster in the lower shell; send about six oysters to each guest at a time.
=Roast Oysters.=--Clean the shells thoroughly, and place them on the coals in an open fire-place, or remove the top of range, and put them on the live coals, until they snap open, which they will soon do. Care must be exercised not to burn fingers.
At evening, young folks like the fun of roasting oysters in the furnace below stairs, and eating them from the shell as fast as the host can open them.
=Baked Oysters.=--Clean the shells thoroughly, and fill a dripping-pan with them, deep shell down. Look at them after ten minutes. If the shells are all opened, they are cooked enough. Melted butter, nicely seasoned, is the only sauce to serve with them.
CLAMS.
=Little-Neck Clams.=--From the first of September until the first of May in the following year, the clam--which is richer in nutrition than the oyster--is as meek and as gentle as a clam can be. Yet it submits to all sorts of indignities from the oyster, and has never been known to talk back during the period mentioned. After the first of May, however, its manner changes, and it assumes metropolitan airs. It lords it over the oyster as a bantam struts around a helpless foe; and it plainly intimates to the oyster that moving-day was invented to celebrate its departure.
After May 1, the clam must be recognized as the _avant-coureur_ of all dainty feasts. No summer dinner or supper of any pretensions is considered complete without the small clam. All the small clams in market are supposed to come from Little Neck, Long Island. Not one-quarter of the supply comes from this locality.
=Soft Clams in Chafing-Dish.=--Select a dozen large Guilford clams, wash them thoroughly, and plunge them into boiling water for a moment. Drain and open them, and use the round plump part only. Put in a chafing-dish a pat of butter, and when quite hot add a dash of flour, and cayenne to suit the taste; add the clams, and when they are slightly cooked add a gill of light sherry. Cover the dish, and allow it to simmer five minutes. Have ready three slices of toast, put four clams upon each slice, add a little of the hot sherry, and serve.
=Stewed Little-Neck Clams.=--Get two dozen freshly opened, _very_ small clams. Boil a pint of milk, a dash of white pepper, and a small pat of butter. Now add the clams. Let them come to a boil, and serve. Longer boiling will make the clams almost indigestible.
=Soft Clams.=--Select a dozen soft-shell clams; wash them well; remove the shells; trim off the tough neck; place each clam on a half-shell, and add to each half a teaspoonful of finely-chopped bacon, a little cayenne, a very small bit of onion, and a pat of butter rolled in flour; strew over the top a little grated Parmesan cheese, and bake to a delicate brown. Cracker-crumbs may be used instead of the cheese if preferred.
=Soft-Shell Clams, Scalloped.=--Purchase a dozen large soft clams in the shell, and three dozen opened clams. Ask the dealer to open the first dozen, care being used not to injure the shells, which are to be used in cooking the clams. Clean the shells well, and put two soft clams on each half-shell; add to each a dash of white pepper and half a teaspoonful of minced celery. Cut a slice of fat bacon into the smallest dice, add four of these to each shell, strew over the top a thin layer of cracker-dust, place a pat of table butter on top, and bake in the oven until brown. They are delightful when properly prepared.
=Clam Toast.=--Chop up two dozen small clams into fine pieces; simmer for thirty minutes in hot water enough to cover them. Beat up the yolks of two eggs; add a little cayenne and a gill of warmed milk; dissolve half a teaspoonful of flour in a little cold milk; simmer all together; pour over buttered toast, and serve.
=Clam Broth.=--Procure three dozen Little-Neck clams in the shell; wash them well in cold water; put them in a saucepan, cover with a quart of hot water; boil fifteen minutes; drain; remove the shells; chop up the clams, and add them to the hot broth with a pat of butter; salt if necessary, and add a little cayenne; boil ten minutes, pour into a soup-tureen, add a slice of toast, and send to table. This is the mode adopted when we do not have a clam-opener in the house.
Raw, freshly opened clams should be chopped fine and prepared in the manner above described. The large clams are better for chowders than for stews and broth.
=Clam Fritters.=--Chop medium fine twenty-five large quahaugs, or seventy-five Little Necks. To a pint of flour add the beaten yolks of three eggs, half a teaspoonful of salt, a teaspoonful of lemon-juice, a dash of cayenne, and an ounce of melted butter. Mix well, and make a batter by adding about a gill of milk. Add the clams, and if the batter is too thick add a little of the clam broth. To make them light, beat the mixture well; drop spoonfuls in hot fat, and fry brown, as you would doughnuts.
=Fried Soft Clams.--=Select half a dozen of large Guilford clams. Remove the shells, and trim off the dark tough parts. Cut into dice a quarter of a pound of salt pork, and fry it. In the pork-fat fry the clams, but first dredge them with flour. Serve with a slice of broiled or fried fat pork.
CRABS.
=Hard-shell Crabs.=--The common blue crab is the species of the crab family which we are most familiar with. We remember how rapidly they darted away from us when we pointed the net towards them, when on our summer vacation. We also have vivid recollections of their anxiety to shake hands with us when in captivity.
Hard crabs are to be had during almost the entire season, and the average price asked for them is $3.00 per hundred. Those found in market in winter were raked out of the mud, where they had buried themselves until the advent of warm weather.
Select a dozen hard crabs, and rinse them well in fresh water. Have ready a kettle two-thirds full of boiling water, slightly salted; plunge them into it, and boil them for about twelve minutes; drain, and when cool put them in the ice-box to become cold.
After the theatre, return home for supper, instead of patronizing the restaurant, and serve the crabs with sandwiches of buttered bread. A light sauterne may be served with them, if not objected to.
=Crab Patties, Cream Sauce.=--Roll out a pound of light puff-paste, half an inch in thickness. Cut it into rounds with a cake-cutter two inches in diameter. Press a small cutter one inch in diameter, on each round, one-fourth of an inch deep. Place them on a buttered tin, brush a little beaten egg over them, and bake in a quick oven. When done, remove the centre, and a little of the inside.
Put into a saucepan half an ounce of butter, half an onion minced, half a pound of minced raw veal, and a small carrot shredded. Toss about for two or three minutes to fry, but not to color; then add two tablespoonfuls of flour. Mix it well with the other ingredients, and add three pints of hot water, a pint of boiling cream, half a teaspoonful of salt, and a saltspoonful of white pepper. Simmer one hour, and strain into a saucepan. Add to each pint of it half a gill of warm cream. Place back on range again, and simmer until reduced enough to coat the spoon, then strain into a crock, and whisk until it is cold. This is done to prevent the formation of a thick top. At this season of the year this is an excellent sauce to have on hand for patties, white fish sauces, and also for meat sauces. When wanted for patties, melt an ounce of butter. While whisking it, gradually add a pint of the sauce. Mix it with a quart of prepared crab-meat, obtainable at the grocer’s. When hot, fill the shells with it.
=Soft-shell Crabs.=--When the blue crab is desirous of increasing his growth, he sheds his shell, and for a short period is perfectly helpless. The male usually retires to a secluded spot out of the reach of eels and other enemies, but the female soft shell is protected by a male companion whose shell is hard. At Sheepshead Bay these are called elopers or double crabs. As the tide changes, the soft shell begins to harden, when it is called “paper-shell,” shedder, or feeler. Before reaching its normal condition, the crab is called a buckler, and is only used as bait.
=The Care of Soft Crabs.=--Soft crabs require delicate handling and much care. They deteriorate rapidly after leaving the water, and are often killed in transit by the sudden jarring of the train. If a little care is exercised, they may be kept alive from six to ten days. First select vigorous crabs, remove them from the crate, and give them a bath in water slightly salted. Clean the crate thoroughly, renew or wash the seaweed which accompanies them. Strew over the bottom of the crate a layer of the seaweed, and place the crabs in the crate in layers, faces upward with side spines touching each other, and alternated with layers of seaweed. When the crate is full, cover it with more seaweed, sprinkle salt water over all, and set the crate in a dark, cool place. Sprinkle salt water over them from day to day, and renew the bath and fresh sea-tangle about every other day. Treated this way, they will keep in the hottest weather. One of the principal objects in covering them with seaweed is to keep the light from them. Sudden flashes of lightning, if seen by them, would frighten them to death. Their sensitive organization cannot even stand the rumbling of thunder, and they should be stored away where they cannot hear it distinctly. The only care required in cleaning them for the table is to remove the feathery gill-like formations under the side spines, and the sand-pouch. Soft crabs are too delicate morsels to cover with batter.
=Crabs, Soft-shell.=--These should be cooked as soon as possible after being caught, as their flavor rapidly deteriorates after being exposed to the air. Select crabs as lively as possible; remove the feathery substance under the pointed sides of the shells; rinse them in cold water; drain; season with salt and pepper; dredge them in flour, and fry in hot fat.
Many serve them rolled in eggs and cracker-dust; but thus they are not as good.
=Crab Croquettes.=--Take one pound of crab-meat; gently press out the juice, and put it in a bowl with a tablespoonful of fine crumbs, half a teaspoonful of salt, half a saltspoonful of pepper, a dash of anchovy essence, the yolks of two eggs, and a very little cold water. If the eggs are not enough to make it the proper consistency, bind the ingredients together, and place on ice until wanted; then work into corks or cone-shaped forms, dip them in beaten egg, then in crumbs, and fry in hot fat.
=Crab Patties, à la Bechamel.=--Prepare the shells the same as for oyster patties (which see). Put into a saucepan half an ounce of butter, half a medium-sized onion minced, half a pound of minced raw veal, one small carrot shredded; toss about for two minutes to fry, but not to color; add two tablespoonfuls of flour, stir it about with the vegetables; then add three pints of hot water, or if convenient use hot soup-stock instead; add a pint of boiling cream. Season with half a teaspoonful of salt and a saltspoonful of white pepper. Simmer one hour, and strain into a saucepan. Add to each pint of sauce half a wineglassful of cream. Simmer until reduced enough to coat a spoon; strain it again into a crock, and whisk it until cold, to prevent a thick top from forming. When wanted for patties, or any thing else, boil one pint of it with an ounce of butter, whisking it thoroughly. Prepare a quart of solid crab-meat, either picked from the shells or purchased already prepared; add it to a pint of the sauce; strew in a few shredded mushrooms: fill the crab-shells with this, and serve. On fast-days, omit veal and stock from meats, and use milk instead.
[This very excellent sauce was named after the Marquis de Bechamel, a worthless court-lounger and steward under Louis XIV. Why his unsavory memory has been perpetuated by a gastronomic monument of worth, is one of those inexplicable historical facts that students of the art of cookery are continually stumbling upon. The close observer will not fail, however, to discover that nearly all dishes named after old French celebrities were stolen bodily from old Venetian and Provençal books of cookery, and were re-baptized after some of the most notorious profligates of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Many of these old cook-books, like “Opusculum de Obsoniis de Honesta Voluptate,” a volume printed at Venice, 1475 (the first cookery-book published), and others, contain recipes almost identical with French cookery of the past few centuries.]
=Crabs, à l’Américaine.=--Pick out the meat from the shells of four dozen boiled hard-shell crabs; squeeze out the water gently; put the meat in a bowl, and add the yolks of two raw eggs, salt, cayenne, and a very little chopped parsley, and two tablespoonfuls of bread-crumbs; roll the mixture into small balls or cakes; dip in egg batter, roll in cracker-crumbs, and fry to a delicate brown. They may be served plain or with tomato sauce.