Classic Steak House Food in Early America - Steaks With Oyster Sauce

Welcome to 18th century cooking I'm your host  Jon Townsend and today we have special guests   in the kitchen Michael Dragoo we will be cooking  steaks fried with an oyster sauce with an oyster   sauce thanks for joining us today as we savor  the flavors in the aromas of the 18th century. So Michael you brought us this very very  interesting recipe this one's from it's   Elizabeth Cleland 1755 the the book is one of  that you offer it's "A New and Easy Method of   Cookery" right so an interesting cookbook  it's kind of got a little bit of a Scottish   background it was French and Indian War based out  of England yeah so so um so this steaks fried we   don't normally kind of a little strange. No and  I'm without reading the whole thing through it   says I'm gonna take the flat I'm gonna cut them  flat with my chopping knife we don't find cuts   of meat generally like you'd find in a big-box  store these days. Right so and it's like today   we would fry these up these might be a little bit  more expensive in a time period she calls for a   tender cut so not something you know hard right  right right and I guess the I mean that's typical   we might get that at any steak restaurant when we  go but this oyster sauce it's not just the fact of   using oysters but it's what else we've added to  this sauce that makes us so unusual and you know   when you're done with it it's it's pretty tasty.  Do you think so? I haven't tried it yet. I can't   lie in front of the camara no I don't think so no  it's gonna be great I'm sure it is. So read us a   recipe. Sure "cut your steaks off any tender part  of the beef flat them with your chopping knife   and put them on a hot brander on a clear quick  fire" and a quick fire is about 350 400 degrees   "turning them often that the gravy does not run  out have your sauce ready make it thus scald your   oysters and wash them clean in their own liquor  then strain the liquor into a saucepan put to it   a piece of butter worked in flour two or three  shallots pounded pepper cloves and nutmeg salt   it to your taste and put a glass of put to it  a glass of white wine and the rind and juice   of a lemon so pour it on your basket of steaks  boiling hot garnish them with pickles" there's   lots of things we can address here all right some  of these phrases mean and all the time yeah and   then there's the question also of which one we're  gonna cook first right because of course we don't   want our steaks getting cold so we'll probably  work on this sauce right yeah I think so yes okay   so how are we gonna get started on this sauce?  Well the first step is to heat up a pan and we've   done that and we're gonna introduce some flour and  some butter together okay so normally you would do   this over a stovetop with your little with a  little pan but this one's so thick and heavy   that it will hold the heat so right basically cook  with it we've got a ball of butter and in in all   of these recipes they are asking us and it might  be the size of a walnut so they'll give us a size   sometimes but there you're just pushing as much  flour into the butter as you can that's acting   as a roux today we'd use equal parts of butter  and flour to make our roux and this is how they   did it and frequently it's not the first step in  this recipe it is that one's in. We're gonna add   some shallots once again this is reduce down  next step is to introduce the oysters liqueur   we've filtered it through a piece of linen we're  just gonna put that in right now that's the base   of our sauce it's good right there yeah I don't  think I would I would make an oyster sauce with   its juice you know no I can't either but I'll tell  you when it's done it's uh it tastes differently   okay good so I've got spices here what else goes  in this Oh I don't put them all in just a finger   of each okay in this case we're gonna add some  salt so a little bit of salt some coarse pepper   coarse pepper and if you would take the honors oh  yeah look at some cloves from I'll do that well we   got nutmeg so nutmeg has to go in nutmeg yeah your  handlers told me that I can't bring recipes unless   they have nutmeg in them that's right you are  the necromancer of nutmeg history oh and that's   it and we're gonna we're gonna put a some lemon  in with few squeeze of lemon I'll get a little   okay a little of the peel the rind in there we  go. So this sauce as it is has this wonderful   complex smell I'll bet it's going to taste very  very wonderful and interesting what's next with   this we're just gonna get it back on the fire and  let it simmer for a little bit right just to kind   of reduce down a bit so we're gonna steam these  oysters right she says scald your oysters and I   interpret that as steaming yeah is it obviously  we don't want to but they don't they don't get   cooked a lot that's what she means by the scalding  is almost like blanching them right we're gonna   steam them which is great our steaming setup  is we got a pot here with just a little bit of   water in it yeah I don't have a steamer from  the time periods but I do have a we're gonna   put the oysters in this and we're gonna put a  lid on it and put it over the fire. So we're   flipping these over faster than I would do in the  standard you know cooking steak today right she's   trying to sear them in this time period they seem  to always be piercing the meat the flesh of the   meat and collecting the drippings they called the  gravy the gravy and this time period is the juices   the blood from the from the animal this recipe  specifically says keep those keep that gravy right   in there so keep turning them over keep turning  them don't let them do it try to sear them. And here we are so here's our finished dish  it looks looks interesting we got this nice   pickled garnish right she says to garnish with  pickle I'm not sure if she really means you know   pickles like this or a pickle kind of relish but  that's okay and we got some wonderful smells and   flavors boy that sauce smell good question is  is does it add a lot to the flavor? And we will   report back momentarily so let's try this out we  got a nice medium rare I get a fair shot here yeah   here we go. That's again unexpected and I don't  normally eat oysters and it's interesting it's   actually at least as as it was made here it's a  very mild sauce yes there's no whelming it's not   overwhelming I you know if I was gonna redo it I  might push the salt and pepper a little bit more   I did not even getting the nutmeg in there so  she doesn't mention seasoning the meat at all   and so we didn't right we're taking the recipe  literally sometimes it's left to interpretation   right and they even might have a saw even whether  the oysters come back in you know actually see   that in the recipe she says to steam the oysters  I think it since assumed you put him back in the   sauce and which we did right why would you seam  oyster and not so I'm not collecting the drippings   right exactly so um but you know going back on  there we could add that in here yep yep okay I   think it's a great little sauce of course today  you know we would just say hey that steak is so   good why would we want to ruin it with any  sauce at all right um I think she wanted to   you know perk these up a little bit make it just  a little bit fancier by having these things on it   when today boy we would just eat the steak and  enjoy it yeah I would encourage you to try it   it's different it's completely different than what  you're used to. So a wonderful kind of comparison   today's steakhouse food versus you know what's  happening 250 years ago perfect example that   great recipe thanks there so much Michael for sure  in another episode where Michael brings something   interesting will that what mushrooms and cream  right mushrumps and cream check out this video.

Channel: Townsends

Views: 1,043,364

Keywords: townsends, jas townsend and son, reenacting, history, 18th century, 19th century, jon townsend, 18th century cooking, steak, steak house, michael dragoo, oyster, oyster sauce, fried steak, grilled steak

Id: ajnvKEd8RfI

Length: 8min 43sec (523 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 02 2020