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

Take a dozen oysters, open them, and leave them in the deep shell. Place a little butter upon each, with a pinch of salt and cayenne, and half a teaspoonful of lemon-juice. Put the shells on the gridiron over a clear but not fierce fire, and boil them for three minutes. Serve them neatly arranged on a folded napkin. Serve with brown bread and butter. Oysters Browned (in their own Gravy). Huitres au Jus. Take a dozen plump and good-sized oysters ; as they are opened, pour their liquor carefully into a cup. Beard the oysters, sprinkle a little pepper and salt over them, and dip each one separately into the yolk of an egg which has been mixed smoothly with a teaspoonful of flour. Brown them in a saucepan with a little clarified butter ; lift them out, mix their liquor with the butter, and thicken it with half a teaspoonful of flour. Simmer gently for three minutes, stir in the browned oysters, let them get hot ; then serve them on toasted bread on a hot dish. Oyster Butter. Beurre aux Huitres. Pound eighteen oysters in a mortar with a little lemon-juice, a little cayenne pepper, and twice their weight of butter. Rub through a sieve, and put in a cool place till wanted ; then use the butter hands, and make them into little balls ; dish in a pyramid, and hand brown bread and butter and shred celery with it Oysters in Cases a la Toulouse. Huitres en Caisses a la Toulouse. Steep one pound of new bread in tepid water, wring it in a cloth to extract the moisture, put it into a stewpan with an ounce of butter and a little salt, stir it over the fire with a wooden spoon till it leaves the sides of the pan ; then scald and beard two dozen oysters, an ounce and a half of the bread panada, one ounce of butter, and the yolk of three eggs ; pound all in a mortar, then rub through a wire sieve ; add one gill of the oyster liquor and one of whipped cream, season with a dust of cayenne pepper and salt, the squeeze of a lemon, the whipped whites of two eggs beaten to snow. Mix the whole lightly, and pour into little moulds or paper cases which have been brushed with dissolved butter ; place buttered paper over, and steam for about half an hour. Oyster Canapes. Canapes aux Huitres. Cut little rounds of bread, fry them a pale colour, and lay on each two oysters bearded ; dust slightly with cayenne, and squeeze two drops of lemon on each ; whip some cream and pour over. These can be varied by putting whipped aspic over instead of the cream. Oyster Cannelons a la Whitstable. Cannelons d'Huitres a la Whitstable. Chop up some oysters that have been soaking in lemon-juice, add a few mushrooms, and mix the whole in some stiffly reduced Allemande sauce. Roll out some seven turns puff paste to about oneeighth of an inch thickness. Moisten the surface with a brush dipped in water ; place some equally sized portions of the above mixture on the paste, about two inches long by one inch ; enclose each portion with paste. Press the edges together, and roll these cannelons on the board to a cork shape ; fry them in warm fat. Drain, and dish them on a napkin, garnish with fried parsley, and serve. Oyster and Caviare Sandwiches. Tartines d'Huitres et Caviar.