Oysters à la mode, or, The oyster and over 100 ways of cooking it

Place a pint basin on the kitchen table, and open the oysters on a little block made for the purpose ; pour the liquor into a stewpan, cut off the fat part of the oyster whilst on the shell into the basin, then cut off the beard and hard parts, and place it in the stewpan with the liquor, and proceed thus till all the oysters are opened. Place the stewpan to simmer for a quarter of an hour, strain off the liquor and let it stand till it is settled, then strain it into the stewpan the sauce is to be made in ; put in a quarter to half a pound of butter, a little cayenne, and thicken with arrowroot, and keep stirring from left to right till it is done, so that it may be quite smooth and free from lumps. Just before it is wanted, pour in the oysters to plump, but not to boil ; then add half a tablespoonful of strained lemon-juice. Oyster Sauce a la Savarin. Take a dozen oysters (or as many more as required), scald them in their own liquor, and then strain them. Mix a tablespoonful of flour in the strained oyster liquor, then mix with this two ounces of butter, add a dust of cayenne, six drops of essence of anchovy, and twelve drops squeezed from a lemon. Mix all this smoothly over the fire, and stir till smooth and thick as cream ; put in the oysters, warm well through, and add a gill of good cream. Milk will answer instead of cream for ordinary purposes. Oyster Sausages. Take two dozen oysters, beard them and scald them in their own liquor, chop very fine, and mix with five ounces of bread-crumbs, and three ounces of finely-chopped beef suet ; add half a saltspoon of salt, half of pepper, a dust of cayenne, a trifle of grated nutmeg ; pass all this through a wire sieve, or chop very fine and bbind the whole with a whole egg, and let it stand for a few hours to cool and to get firmm. Flour the hands and make up into cakes or sausages ; flour and fry in butter. If preferred, they can be thrown into boiling water for three or four minutes, drained and left to get cold, then brushed over with egg and bread-crumbs, and lightly broiled or fried. Savoury Oyster Jelly. Take a pint of large oysters, and when bearded and the hard parts removed, weigh them, and if they do not weigh a pound, beard some more, till you have the proper weight ; cut them in halves into a stewpan, with their own liquor strained (about half a pint), the strained juice of a lemon, and a teaspoonful of anchovy essence. Let all simmer till all are well amalgamated together, stirring occasionally ; then pass through a sieve. Put one ounce of leaf gelatine into half a gill of water, let it dissolve on the fire, then stir the gelatine strained into the o}'ster puree. Have some lobster spawn crushed and grated, and sprinkle in some here and there to give it a mottled appearance, and then mould it. Turn out and decorate with crayfish and aspic jelly. Scalloped Oysters.