Miss Leslie's New Cookery Book - Leslie Eliza

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without having been stewed.

      Soft-crab Fritters.—Use only the bodies of the crabs, and proceed as above.

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      Having boiled a quantity of small sand-clams till they open of themselves, remove them from the shells. Drain away the liquor, and chop them small, omitting the hardest parts. Season them with black pepper and powdered mace, and mix them with grated bread-crumbs and fresh butter. Get some large clean clam-shells, and fill them to the edge with the above mixture, moistened with a very little of the liquor. Cover the surface with grated crumbs, and add to each one a small bit of butter. Set them in an oven, and bake them light brown. Send them to table in the shells they were baked in, arranged on large dishes. They are eaten at breakfast and supper. Clams must always have the shells washed before they are boiled.

      Oysters are frequently scolloped in this manner, minced, and served up in large clam shells.

      Boiled crabs, also, are cooked, minced, and prepared in this way, and sent to table in the back-shell of the crab.

      All these scollops are improved by mixing among them some hard-boiled eggs, minced or chopped; or some raw egg beaten.

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      The old-fashioned way of roasting oysters is to lay them on a hot hearth, and cover them in hot cinders or ashes, (taking them out with tongs when done,) or to put them into a moderate fire. When done, their shells will begin to open. The usual way now is to broil them on large gridirons of strong wire. Serve them up in their shells on large dishes, or on trays, at oyster suppers. At every plate lay an oyster knife and a clean coarse towel, and between every two chairs set a bucket to receive the empty shells. The gentlemen generally save the ladies the trouble of opening the oysters, by performing that office for them.

      Have on the table, to eat with the oysters, bread-rolls, biscuits, butter, and glasses with sticks of celery scraped, and divested of the green leaves at the top. Have also ale or porter.

      Or, you may take large oysters out of their shells, dredge them lightly with flour, lay them separately on a wire gridiron, and broil them. Serve them up on large dishes, with a morsel of fresh butter laid on each oyster.

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      Drain the liquor from a sufficient quantity of fine fresh oysters; and season them with blades of mace, grated nutmeg, and a little cayenne. Lay about a dozen of them in the bottom of a deep dish. Cut some slices of wheat bread, and put them to soak in a pan of the oyster liquor (previously strained.)

      Soak the bread till it is soft throughout, but not dissolved. Cover the oysters in the bottom of the dish, with some slices of the soaked bread, (drained from the liquor,) and lay upon the bread a few small bits of nice fresh butter. Then put in another layer of seasoned oysters; then another layer of soaked bread with bits of butter dispersed upon it. Repeat this with more layers of oysters, soaked bread, and bits of butter, till the dish is full, finishing with a close layer of bread on the top. Set this into a hot oven, and bake it, a short time only, or till it is well browned on the surface. Oysters require but little cooking, and this bread has had one baking already. The liquid that is about the bread is sufficient. It requires no more.

      Scolloped oysters may be cooked in large, clean, clam-shells and served up on great dishes.

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      Take a hundred fine large oysters—set them over the fire in their own liquor—add two ounces of nice fresh butter, and simmer them slowly for ten minutes; skimming them well. If they boil fast and long, they will become hard and shrivelled. Take them off the fire and strain from them their liquor; spread the oysters out on large dishes, and place them in the air to cool fast, or lay them in a broad pan of cold water. This renders them firm. Strain the liquor, and then mix with it an equal quantity of the best and purest clear cider-vinegar. Season (if the oysters are fresh,) with a small tea-spoonful of salt, two dozen whole pepper-corns, and a table-spoonful of powdered mace and nutmeg, mixed. Let the liquor boil till it is reduced to little more than enough to cover the oysters well. Put the oysters into a tureen, or a broad stone jar. Pour the hot liquor over them, and let them grow quite cold before they are eaten. You may give them a fine tinge of pale pink color by adding to the liquor (while boiling,) a little prepared cochineal.

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      For keeping.—Have five or six hundred oysters of the finest sort and largest size. Proceed as in the foregoing receipt, but increase, proportionately, the quantity of spice and vinegar. Put them in stone-ware jars, securing the covers by pasting all round, bands or strips of thick white paper; and place on each jar, on the top of the liquor, a table-spoonful of salad oil.

      Use no other than genuine cider-vinegar. Much that is sold for the best white-wine vinegar is in reality a deleterious compound of pernicious drugs, that will eat up or dissolve the oysters entirely, leaving nothing but a sickening whitish fluid. This vinegar is at first so overpoweringly sharp and pungent, as to destroy, entirely, the taste of the spices; and, while cooking, emits a disagreeable smell. The oysters immediately become ragged, and in less than an hour are entirely destroyed. This vinegar acts in the same manner on all other pickles, and the use of it should always be shunned.

      Drugs should not be employed in any sort of cookery, though their introduction is now most lamentably frequent. They ruin the flavor and are injurious to health.

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      Make sufficient puff-paste for at least a dozen small patties. Roll it out thick, and line with it twelve small tin patty-pans. Bake them brown in a brisk oven; and when done set them to cool. Have ready two or three dozen large, fine, fresh oysters. Wash and drain them, and put them into a stew-pan with no other liquid than just enough of their own liquor to keep them from burning. Season them with cayenne, nutmeg, and mace, and a few of the green tops or leaves of celery sprigs minced small. Add a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, divided into bits, and laid among the oysters. To enrich the gravy, stir in, at the last, the beaten yolks of three or four eggs, or some thick cream or butter. Let the oysters stew in this gravy about five minutes. When the patties are beginning

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