Compo^Lnd Sturgeon Soup>s are all expanded stews or ragouts made with soup sauce. They may be white or brown. Broion Sturgeon Soup is an espagnole sauce with morsels of sturgeon-flesh and quenelles of lobster. Of 6 lb. of sturgeon, 2 lb. only are to be eaten as such, 4 lb. are to serve to make the soup sauce. In White Sturgeon Sotip a white veloute takes the place of espagnole. Chinese Sturgeon Soup is a beef and veal broth, with pieces of the cartilaginous head of the sturgeon, boiled tender, so that it can at least be chewed if not digested. The prepara- tion of the sturgeon’s head begins with splitting it with a FISH SOUCHETS 193 cleaver or saw, and dividing the halves again transversely into slices of the size of chops. Soak them in water frequently renewed, and then boil them in water until the shell is easily detached from the cartilage ; free the latter from all pieces of shell, ligaments or flesh ; put it in a stew- pan, cover it with standard broth, add the symphony of vegetables, and boil for two hours, or until the pieces of cartilage have become transparent and rather soft to the touch. Drain them on a sieve, and cut them in small pieces ; finish the broth, and pour it over the pieces of cartilage.* Sturgeon Soup with Gurry is the same preparation as the foregoing, or soup sauce from sturgeon-flesh-broth with white roux and vegetable puree, all flavoured with curry, put over sturgeon-head cartilage, garnished with rice. Fish Souchets or Souchies. The significance of the word ‘ souchet ’ or ‘ souchy ’ is not explained in dictionaries or cookery-books ; it is not used by the latest French authors of note, the author of ‘ D.D.’ or Gouffe. It might be derived from souche, stump or piece. It is often used in combination with the prefix xoater, as water-soicchet, or with fish, as fish-souchet.t Most so-called water-souchets in cookery-books appear to be stews of fish with a thin, gravy-like, savoury sauce ; nevertheless, they are ranged under soups. What is given in London taverns and restaurants occasionally as water-souchets is mere common flat fish — e.g., flounders — cut transversely in large slices, and boiled in water with some roots and herbs. We have never observed any souchets to be filleted. A souchet * For Chinese sturgeon soup, cf. F., 341. The cartilage of the sturgeon may be compared to the rib cartilages of the calf, tendronn, and is prepared in the several ways described under ‘Preparations of Veal,’ t Cf. F., 344 et se<j. For ‘ water souchy of old,’ or Cl I’ancienne, cf. ‘ Cul. Fam. Med.,’ p. 58. 13 194 THE SPIRIT OF COOKERY is not practically treated as a soup, but served after the soup as one of the releves consisting of fish. Some culinary writers use the expression water-soucliet- hroth ; this should be ‘ souchet-broth,’ as this very broth is the result of the transformation of the water. For the same reason ‘ water-souchet ’ is a contradiction in terms, the more so when, as is done by some, the broth is termed the ‘ souchet.’ But the souchet is the piece of fish boiled in the broth, which latter, though thin, is soup-like and some- what savoury. We should, therefore, omit the ordinarily prefixed ‘ water ’ entirely from our nomenclature.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

Compound Sturgeon Soups>s are all expanded stews or ragouts made with soup sauce. They may be white or brown. Broion Sturgeon Soup is an espagnole sauce with morsels of sturgeon-flesh and quenelles of lobster. Of 6 lb. of sturgeon, 2 lb. only are to be eaten as such, 4 lb. are to serve to make the soup sauce. In White Sturgeon Sotip a white veloute takes the place of espagnole. Chinese Sturgeon Soup is a beef and veal broth, with pieces of the cartilaginous head of the sturgeon, boiled tender, so that it can at least be chewed if not digested. The preparation of the sturgeon’s head begins with splitting it with a FISH SOUCHETS cleaver or saw, and dividing the halves again transversely into slices of the size of chops. Soak them in water frequently renewed, and then boil them in water until the shell is easily detached from the cartilage ; free the latter from all pieces of shell, ligaments or flesh ; put it in a stewpan, cover it with standard broth, add the symphony of vegetables, and boil for two hours, or until the pieces of cartilage have become transparent and rather soft to the touch. Drain them on a sieve, and cut them in small pieces ; finish the broth, and pour it over the pieces of cartilage.* Sturgeon Soup with Gurry is the same preparation as the foregoing, or soup sauce from sturgeon-flesh-broth with white roux and vegetable puree, all flavoured with curry, put over sturgeon-head cartilage, garnished with rice. Fish Souchets or Souchies. The significance of the word ‘ souchet ’ or ‘ souchy ’ is not explained in dictionaries or cookery-books ; it is not used by the latest French authors of note, the author of ‘ D.D.’ or Gouffe. It might be derived from souche, stump or piece. It is often used in combination with the prefix water, as water-soicchet, or with fish, as fish-souchet.t Most so-called water-souchets in cookery-books appear to be stews of fish with a thin, gravy-like, savoury sauce ; nevertheless, they are ranged under soups. What is given in London taverns and restaurants occasionally as water-souchets is mere common flat fish — e.g., flounders — cut transversely in large slices, and boiled in water with some roots and herbs. We have never observed any souchets to be filleted. A souchet * For Chinese sturgeon soup, cf. F., 341. The cartilage of the sturgeon may be compared to the rib cartilages of the calf, tendronn, and is prepared in the several ways described under ‘Preparations of Veal,’ t Cf. F., 344 et seq. For ‘ water souchy of old,’ or Cl I’ancienne, cf. ‘ Cul. Fam. Med.,’ p. 58. is not practically treated as a soup, but served after the soup as one of the releves consisting of fish. Some culinary writers use the expression water-soucliethroth ; this should be ‘ souchet-broth,’ as this very broth is the result of the transformation of the water. For the same reason ‘ water-souchet ’ is a contradiction in terms, the more so when, as is done by some, the broth is termed the ‘ souchet.’ But the souchet is the piece of fish boiled in the broth, which latter, though thin, is soup-like and somewhat savoury. We should, therefore, omit the ordinarily prefixed ‘ water ’ entirely from our nomenclature.

The spirit of cookery