Make a rich puff-paste; roll out twice as thick as for a fruit-pie
for the top crust—about the ordinary thickness for the lower. Line a
pudding-dish with the thinner, and fill with crusts of dry bread or
light crackers. Some use a folded towel to fill the interior of the
pie, but the above expedient is preferable. Butter the edges of the
dish, that you may be able to lift the upper crust without breaking.
Cover the mock-pie with the thick crust, ornamented heavily at the
edge, that it may lie the more quietly, and bake. Cook the oysters as
for a stew, only beating into them at the last two eggs, and thickening
with a spoonful of fine cracker-crumbs or rice-flour. They should stew
but five minutes, and time them so that the paste will be baked just
in season to receive them. Lift the top crust, pour in the smoking hot
oysters, and send up hot.
I know that many consider it unnecessary to prepare the oysters and
crust separately; but my experience and observation go to prove that,
if this precaution be omitted, the oysters are apt to be wofully
overdone. The reader can try both methods and take her choice.