TURTLE SOUP.
This soup is so often required for invalids, as well as for the table, that an easy and comparatively inexpensive method of preparing it cannot fail to be acceptable. Nelson's Beef Tea or Extract of Meat will be used instead of fresh beef, and Bellis's Sun-dried Turtle instead of live turtle. If convenient it is desirable to soak the dried turtle all night, but it can be used without doing so. Put it on to boil in the water in which it was soaked, in the proportion of one quart with a teaspoonful of salt to a quarter of a pound of the turtle. Add two or three onions peeled and quartered, a small bit of mace and sliced lemon-peel, and simmer gently for four or five hours, or until the turtle is tender enough to divide easily with a spoon. Stock of any kind may be used instead of water, and as the liquid boils away more should be added, to keep the original quantity. Herbs for the proper flavouring of the Turtle Soup are supplied by Bellis; these should be put in about an hour before the turtle is finished, and be tied in muslin. When done take out the turtle and divide it into neat little pieces; strain the liquor in which it was cooked, and having boiled it up, stir in the contents of two tins of Nelson's Extract of Meat, previously soaked for a few minutes. Mix smooth in a gill of cold water a teaspoonful of French potato-flour and of Vienna flour, stir into the soup, and when it has thickened put in the turtle meat; let it get hot through, add a wine-glassful of sherry, a dessertspoonful of lemon-juice, and salt and pepper to taste, and serve at once. It is necessary to have "Bellis's Sun-dried Turtle," imported by T. K. Bellis, Jeffrey's Square, St. Mary Axe, London (sold in boxes), for this soup, because it is warranted properly prepared. An inferior article, got up by negroes from turtle found dead, is frequently sold at a low price; but it is unnecessary to say it is not good or wholesome.