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

Open and beard about eighteen oysters, strain the liquor, and rinse the oysters well in it. Make some thick rich white sauce with milk, butter, and flour, stir the liquor into it, add a little cayenne and a dessertspoonful of lemon-juice, put the oysters in, and let them warm well by the fire, but not boil, for four or five minutes. Put the mixture into the shells (scallop shells or silver shells), cover the top with bread crumbs fried a delicate brown and well dried, or put on plain fine bread-crumbs ; pour clarified butter over, and brown with a salamander. Serve very hot and ornament here and there with tiny pieces of parsley. A dessertspoonful of cream put into the white sauce is an improvement. Scalloped Oysters and Eggs. Melt two ounces of fresh butter in a saucepan with salt, pepper, a grate of nutmeg, a dessertspoonful of minced parsley, a teaspoonful of minced chives and morells. Well cook this mixture, and scald three dozen oysters in their own liquor (which must be strained) into the mixture, and give one boil up. Then add five or six hardboiled eggs in slices, simmer over a gentle fire for a few minutes, then pour this into scallop shells. sprinkle with fine bread-crumbs, lay small pieces of butter on the top, and brown with the salamander. Scalloped Oysters a la Francaise. Take one dozen and a half oysters, throw them into boiling water over the fire, and let them just bubble up, not boil. Roll them in butter (an ounce of butter for the lot), with a little minced parsley, pepper and lemon-juice. Make some of the deep shells quite clean, arrange the oysters three or four in each, put them on the gridiron, and the moment the liquor bubbles at the side take them up and serve them. Scotch Oysters. Take one pound of leg of veal, which must be chopped fine and pounded in a mortar ; shred half a pound of beef suet and add to it ; then pound both together to a paste, add three ounces of fine breadcrumbs, two whole eggs beaten, a little grate of nutmeg, and pepper and salt to taste. Shape this mixture into little flat cakes, fry them in butter or bake them ; now put half a pint of gravy in a small saucepan, two or three mushrooms, and one dozen oysters bearded ; thicken with a little flour and butter, bring to the boil, then pour over the cakes and serve. Sorrento Oysters. Stew some macaroni in gravy till tender, seasoning with cayenne and salt to taste ; then take equal parts of oysters and macaroni, and chop them up together, and mix well in a stewpan with some grated Parmesan cheese, a little butter, and enough cream to moisten all sufficiently ; stir it on the fire till hot, then fill your scallop shells with the mixture and brown them before the fire. Serve immediately. Oyster Souffld.