Maryland Pan Fried Oysters - 1 1/2 pints (24 ounces) shucked Maryland oysters, 2 eggs, beaten, 2 tablespoons milk, 1 teaspoon salt, dash pepper, 1 1/2 cups dry bread crumbs, 1 1/2 cups flour, margarine, butter, or oil, for frying. Drain oysters. Mix egg, milk and seasonings in a bowl. In another bowl, mix bread crumbs and flour. Roll oysters in crumb mixture, dip in egg mixture, and then roll again in crumb mixture. Fry over medium heat, in just enough hot fat to keep from sticking until brown on one side, 3-5 minutes. Turn carefully and brown the other side 3 to 5 minutes. Drain and serve immediately.
Maryland Pan Fried Chicken - Mary Randolph, in the third printing of "Virginia House-Wife" (1828), told how to make fried chicken. Very simply, the chickens are cut up, dredged in flour, sprinkled with a little salt, put in a skillet with hot fat, and fried until golden brown. Through the years there have been hundreds of attempts to improve upon her recipe, and plenty of tricks and special touches, but they are all simply minor variations on the original. Mary Randolph mentions making a gravy with the "leavings", but the cream sauce so often served with fried chicken seems to have originated with the dish "Maryland fried chicken". In the cookbook, "Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen" (Baltimore, 1873), the only fried chicken recipe calls for a sauce made of butter, cream, parsley, salt and pepper.
