Recipe of the Month: An 1870's Recipe for Oyster Fritters

 I was reading a book, The Big Oyster by Mark Kurlansky - it's a very interesting story about the history of oysters and oystering and oyster houses in New York City beginning when native Americans lived there, then the Dutch, then the British, and finally we Americans. There are many recipe's in the book and when I reached an easy one I decided to make it, but first the back story from the book...

"Juliet Corson was born in the Roxbury section of Boston in 1841 and opened the Free Training School for Women at age thirty-three, before she learned how to cook. She hired a French chef, thought to have been the celebrated Pierre Blot. Two years later she was living on St. Mark's Place in Manhattan giving cooking classes in her home. She called her classes the New York Cooking School and had one thousand students a year. In everything Corson did, she addressed social conscience. The New York Cooking School tried to charge enormous fees to the rich while asking only a nickel a lesson for the middle class. The poor could attend for free. When New York's economy declined in the 1870's, she self -published controversial pamphlets such as "Fifteen cent dinners for Families of Six" and "How can we live if we are moderately poor". One of her numerous cookbooks, titled Meals for the Million: The People's Cookbook, has eight oyster recipes including this one for oyster fritters, a popular inexpensive dish because it could be made with the smallest, lowest-grade shucked oysters:

    The oysters should be examined for bits of shell, and their liquor strained (I used two 8oz containers of oysters (Pacific) from Winn Dixie. They were huge! I cut them into quarters) 

    Then make a batter by mixing two cupfuls of flour, the yelk [sic] of one raw egg, a tablespoon of salad oil (I used Olive Oil), a dust of cayenne pepper, and sufficient oyster liquor to make the batter just thick enough to sustain the drops from the mixing spoon; (the liquor from the oyster containers was not enough to make the batter so I added some whole milk)

    Plenty of fat should now be heated until it is smoking;(I used about 3" of peanut oil, heated to 375 degrees). The white of the egg should be beaten stiff and gently stirred into the batter when the fat is hot, together with the oysters, either whole or chopped, and it should be put in the hot fat by large spoonful, and fried brown; the fritters when done should be laid on brown paper for a moment to free them from grease (I used a paper towel) and then served.

NOTE: I probably wouldn't make this again, Hah!  As the book alludes to, it was a good recipe for poorer folks, so they could have filled up on flour we had a difficult time tasting the Oysters.  If I was going to make another fritter, I think I'd google a Cajun style recipe - one that had more flavor, and made with Corn Meal. Or maybe just lightly batter the whole oyster and fry it so you get the oyster flavor and texture. 

From Roasting Oysters to Oyster Plates - we love our oysters!

 We finally got to kick back and roast our first batch of oysters last week...and a sneak look at my wife's Oyster Plate collection...

Recipe of the Month: Oyster Stew

Finally! We stopped by Houston's Meat Market on the way home and picked up a bushel of oysters - they were from Virginia - the York River. Coincidently, we had oysters at a party a couple of weeks before that and they had both Virginia oysters AND "local" oysters (they were actually from south Georgia). Those local oysters were clusters - 4-5-6 oysters in one lump, and were the best I've had in a while. BUT, you had to work for them. They're small and difficult to shuck. The Virginia oysters are singles and larger, easier to shuck, and you get more "bang for you buck", but not quite as tasty as the local oysters.  This bushel that we picked up from Houston's we roasted and shucked and ate them with hot sauce, butter, butter and horseradish. Note that I've got a habit of roughly counting the oysters as I wash and load them on the grill and the bushel ended up having approximately 12 dozen oysters. We shucked and ate all but 3 dozen, then shucked the rest to make oyster stew.

This recipe comes from www.shewearsmanyhats.com

Ingredients:

- 4 tablespoons butter

- 1 Large onion, finely diced

-  2 garlic cloves

- 1/4 teaspoon red pepper

- 1/4 teaspoon paprika

- 1/4 teaspoon salt

-  1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

- 6 cups whole milk or half and half

 - 1 teaspoon dried parsley

- 16 ounces fresh raw oysters, undrained

INSTRUCTIONS:

1.  Heat butter over medium heat in heavy bottom 3-quart saucepan. Add  diced onion and saute until tinder, about 5 minutes. Grate in garlic(or mince), continue to saute for another 1-2 minues, being watchful to not burn garlic. Add red pepper, paprika, salt, black pepper, stir to toast about 1 minute.

2. Drain oysters and reserve liquid (oyster liqueur)(we didn't have any of this as ours came right off the grill. BUT, we opened a can of crab meat and dumped it in, crab and liquid to add some thickness)

3) Reduce heat to low, add milk, parsley and oyster liqueur.

4) Cook over low heat until mixture is hot and beginning to steam, and bubbles just start to appear around the edge. Do NOT allow to come to a boil. Salt and pepper to taste.

5) Add oysters and continue to  cook over low heat until oysters begin to curl on edges.