This soup is sometimes made with beef, or veal broth, or with fish, in the following manner:
Take flounders, eels, gudgeons, &c., and set them on to boil in cold water; when it is pretty nigh boiling, skim it well; and to three quarts put in a couple of onions, and as many carrots cut to pieces, some parsley, a dozen berries of black and Jamaica pepper, and about half a hundred craw-fish; take off the small claws and shells of the tails; pound them fine, and boil them with the broth about an hour; strain off, and break in some crusts of bread to thicken it, and, if you can get it, the spawn of a lobster; pound it, and put it to the soup; let it simmer very gently for a couple of minutes; put in your craw-fish to get hot, and the soup is ready.
Obs.—One of my predecessors recommends craw-fish pounded alive, to sweeten the sharpness of the blood. Vide Clermont’s Cookery, p. 5, London, 1776.
“Un des grands hommes de bouche de France” says, “Un bon coulis d’ecrevisses est le paradis sur la terre, et digne de la table des dieux; and of all the tribe of shell-fish, which our industry and our sensuality bring from the bottom of the sea, the river, or the pond, the craw-fish is incomparably the most useful and the most delicious.”
Lobster Soup.—(No. 237.)
You must have three fine lively[211-*] young hen lobsters, and boil them, see [No. 176]; when cold, split the tails; take out the fish, crack the claws, and cut the meat into mouthfuls: take out the coral, and soft part of the body; bruise part of the coral in a mortar; pick out the fish from the chines; beat part of it with the coral, and with this make forcemeat balls, finely-flavoured with mace or nutmeg, a little grated lemon-peel, anchovy, and Cayenne; pound these with the yelk of an egg.
Have three quarts of veal broth; bruise the small legs and the chine, and put them into it, to boil for twenty minutes, then strain it; and then to thicken it, take the live spawn and bruise it in a mortar with a little butter and flour; rub it through a sieve, and add it to the soup with the meat of the lobsters, and the remaining coral; let it simmer very gently for ten minutes; do not let it boil, or its fine red colour will immediately fade; turn it into a tureen; add the juice of a good lemon, and a little essence of anchovy.
Soup and Bouilli.—(No. 238. See also [No. 5].)
The best parts for this purpose are the leg or shin, or a piece of the middle of a brisket of beef, of about seven or eight pounds weight; lay it on a fish-drainer, or when you take it up put a slice under it, which will enable you to place it on the dish entire; put it into a soup-pot or deep stew-pan, with cold water enough to cover it, and a quart over; set it on a quick fire to get the scum up, which remove as it rises; then put in two carrots, two turnips, two leeks, or two large onions, two heads of celery, two or three cloves, and a fagot of parsley and sweet herbs; set the pot by the side of the fire to simmer very gently, till the meat is just tender enough to eat: this will require about four or five hours.
Put a large carrot, a turnip, a large onion, and a head or two of celery, into the soup whole; take them out as soon as they are done enough; lay them on a dish till they are cold; then cut them into small squares: when the beef is done, take it out carefully: to dish it up, see [No. 204], or [No. 493]: strain the soup through a hair-sieve into a clean stew-pan; take off the fat, and put the vegetables that are cut into the soup, the flavour of which you may heighten by adding a table-spoonful of mushroom catchup.