The new practical housekeeping

Pieces in frying basket and plunge into boiling fat for half a minute, Take out, drain, and with a knife, remove the centers and take out soft bread ; then fill with following mixture ; put two tablespoons butter in frying-pan, and when hot, add one of flour. Stir until smooth and brown, add cup oyster liquor, boil one minute, and stir in one pint chopped oysters. Season with salt, pepper, and a little lemon juice. When hot, fill the crusts. Veal or any kind of meat or fish may be used with any kind of stock for the liquid. Oyster Powder. — Beard fresh large oysters and place in vessel over fire a few moments to extract their juice ; cool them and chop very fine with sifted biscuit or bread-crumbs, mace and finely minced lemon peel, then pound in mortar to a paste ; shape into thin cakes, place on buttered paper and bake in slow oven until quite hard. Take out and pound them to a powder, which put in air-tight tin box and keep in dry place. Nice for flavoring fish, soups, stews and sauces. Oyster Pie. — Butter a large dish, and spread a rich paste over the sides and around the edge, but not on the bottom ; drain off part of liquor from oysters, put them in pan, and season with pepper, salt, spice and butter ; have ready yolk of three hardboiled eggs chopped fine, and grated bread-crumbs ; pour the oysters [illustration: 684 SHELL-FISH] with enough of their liquor to moisten well, into the dish with the paste, strew over them the chopped eggs and grated bread, cover with the paste and bake in quick oven. Nice also, with gill of cream added, and a little flour. For a Chicken and Oyster Pie, parboil a chicken, cut up and place in baking dish, season and cover with a layer of oysters, season them with butter, pepper and salt, put two hard-boiled eggs, cut in slices, with piece of butter size of egg in center, sift flour over the whole, add a half pint milk, cover with the paste and bake three-quarters of an hour in moderate oven. Oyster Roll. — Cut a round piece, say six inches across, from top of well-baked round loaf of bread, remove inside from loaf, leaving crust half an inch thick, break up crumbs very fine, and dry them slowly in an oven ; then quickly fry three cups of them in two tablespoons butter, stirring all the time. As soon as they begin to look golden and are crisp they are done. Put quart cream on to heat, and when it boils stir in three tablespoons of flour, mixed with cup cold milk. Cook ten minutes, season well with salt and pepper ; put a layer of this in the loaf, then a layer of oysters, which dredge well with salt and pepper; then another layer of sauce and one of fried crumbs. Continue this until the loaf is nearly full, having the last layer a thick one of crumbs. Three pints of oysters are required for this dish, and about three teaspoons of salt and half teaspoon pepper. Bake slowly half an hour. Serve on a fringed napkin with a garnish of parsley around the dish. Or to serve individually remove a slice from top of small rolls, scoop out the crumb and fill them with oysters slightly stewed with butter or cream, and some bread-crumbs ; replace tops of leaves and bake till crisp. Glaze with beaten egg.