All fish soups should be made with milk, (if unskimmed so much the better,) using no water whatever. The best fish for soup are the small sort of cat-fish; also tutaug, porgie, blue fish, white fish, black fish or sea-bass. Cut off their heads, tails, and fins, and remove the skin, and the backbone, and cut the fish into pieces. To each pound of fish allow a quart of rich milk. Put into the soup-pot some pieces of cold boiled ham. No salt will then be required; but season with cayenne pepper, and a few blades of mace and some grated nutmeg. Add a bunch of sweet marjoram, the leaves stripped from the stalks and chopped. Make some little dumplings of flour and butter, and put them in when the soup is about half done. Half an hour's steady boiling will be sufficient. Serve up in the tureen the pieces of fish and ham. Also some toast cut in dice.
Soup may be made in this manner, of chickens or rabbits, using always milk enriched with bits of butter rolled in flour and flavored with bits of cold ham.
LOBSTER SOUP.—
This is a fine soup for company. Take two or three fine fresh lobsters, (the middle sized are the best.) Heat a large pot of water, throwing in a large handful of salt. When it is boiling hard put in the lobsters, head foremost, that they may die immediately. They will require at least half an hour's fast boiling; if large, three quarters. When done, take them out, wipe off the scum that has collected on the shell, and drain the lobster. First break off the large claws, and crack them, then split the body, and extract all the white meat, and the red coral—nothing else—and cut it into small pieces. Mash the coral into smooth bits with the back of a large spoon, mixing with it plenty of sweet oil; and, gradually, adding it to the bits of chopped lobster. Put into a clear soup-pot two quarts, or more, of good milk, and thicken it with half a dozen crackers or butter-biscuit, pounded fine; or the grated crumbs of two or three small rolls, and stir in a quarter of a pound of fresh butter made into a paste with two spoonfuls of flour. Put in the chopped lobster, seasoned with nutmeg, a few blades of mace powdered, and a little cayenne. Let all boil together, slowly, for half an hour, keeping it closely covered. Towards the last, stir in two beaten eggs. Lay some very small soda biscuit in the bottom of a tureen, and pour the soup upon them. Nasturtion flowers strewed at the last thickly over the surface of this soup, when in the tureen, are an improvement both to its appearance and flavor. So is peppergrass.
CRAB SOUP.—
Take the meat of two dozen boiled crabs, cut it small, and give it a boil in two quarts of milk. Season it with powdered mace, nutmeg, and a little cayenne, and thicken it with butter mixed in flour; or, make the flour and butter into little dumplings. Have ready half a dozen yolks of hard-boiled eggs, and crumble them into the soup just before you take it from the fire. Add the heart of a fresh green lettuce, cut small and strewed over the surface of the soup, after it is poured into the tureen.