A Course of Lectures on the Principles of Domestic Economy and Cookery

pepper and butter; have the hash nicely mixed together; put into the frying pan; suppose you have a quart of hash, about two tablespoonfuls of butter and let it get hot, then put in the hash. Stir the hash in the butter until it is nearly hot. Then, using a knife, form it into a cake on one side of the frying pan and let the bottom brown. Loosen the hash once in a while from the bottom of the pan to make sure it is not burning and when it is brown on the bottom turn it out on a dish with the brown side up. Another form of hash is the moist hash. That is simply prepared and warmed without browning it, using broth or butter and hot water for moistening it. LECTURE ELEVENTH. OYSTERS. We begin our lecture this morning with roast oysters, Mobile style. All oysters, when cooked in any way, should be first put in a colander and the juice allowed to drain off, then strain the juice. Always take each oyster in the hand and carefully remove all fragments of shell from the gills. The shells of oysters are dangerous to swallow, and serious illness is often the result. Hold the oyster by the hard part, removing pieces of shell with the finger. Then wipe the oyster with a wet towel. Keep the most perfect specimens for broiling, as the more imperfect ones will do sufficiently well for soups or stews. For roasting oysters in the Mobile style, have as many deep oyster shells as you intend to have oysters, scrubbed very clean; put the shells in a dripping pan and place them in the oven, until they become so hot as to melt butter when put into them. When quite hot take the shells out of the oven and put a small piece of butter and a very little pepper in each shell. If the oysters are large lay one in each shell, if they are small put two or three in each shell and put them back in the oven directly. By