Mary Starr Recipe - Oyster Rockefeller

A famous Creole dish from New Orleans ... a labor of love with its double sauce and all the mincing, but well worth the trouble.

3 dozen oysters on the half shell
4 tablespoons finely chopped onion
1 teaspoon finely chopped garlic
4 tablespoons finely chopped green pepper
2 tablespoons finely chopped celery
Juice of 2 lemons
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons chili powder
3/4 pound butter
3/4 cup fine bread crumbs
1 1/2 cups water
4 teaspoons chopped crisp bacon
Salt, white pepper and cayenne pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients except butter thoroughly. Melt butter in a sauce pan, adding first mixture and let cook five minutes. Arrange oyster shells on beds of rock salt (ice cream salt will serve) in tin pans (we used foil pans), allowing six oysters per person. Put one heaping tablespoon of the cooked dressing on each oyster and bake in 400 degree oven ten minutes. Remove from oven, put one tablespoon of following green sauce on each oyster ... return to oven for few moments and serve immediately.

Green Sauce:

2 cups cooked spinach
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 pound butter
4 drops absinthe (optional)
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons vinegar
3/4 cup water
2 dashes Tabasco sauce
4 tablespoons finely chopped parsley

Melt butter in saucepan, add flour. Blend. Add remaining ingredients and cook for three minutes.