Cassell's dictionary of cookery

When cream or milk is used for these white vegetable soups or purees, a bay-leaf and a suspicion of nutmeg may be added. Only be careful with the nutmeg : a very, very little will go a long way, and too much would utterly ruin the soup. Before leaving the subject of soups, there is one I should like to describe, because it is supposed to be a rare and recherche dish, but is in reality very simple, and can be made without much trouble — I refer to bisque made from crab. When the weather is not too hot, and crabs are cheap, take a nice heavy crab that is not watery, and pick out the meat from the claws into shreds with a couple of foi-ks. Then take the soft inside of the back, and pick out all the meat from the rest of the crab, and pound it thoroughly in a mortar with a little boiled rice {about half as much boiled rice as there is crab) ; add some good stock and cayenne pepper, and rub the whole through a tamis ; add some boiling cream, and the shredded meat from the claws at the last moment, just before serving, only take cai*e not to let the bisque boil. Bisque of lobster, bisque of crayfish, is ninety-nine times out of a hundred made principally from crab, and if yovi can get some lobster butter to colour it no one can tell the difference. Lobster butter is simply the coral of lobster pounded with a little butter and cayenne pepper : it is a beautiful colour, and looks like vermilion paint. This will easily dissolve in soup and turn it a bright red. Lobster sauce and shrimp sauce both i-equire lobster butter. Before leaving the subject of soups, I would refer to that somewhat modern invention — soups preserved in tins. To maintain that tinned soups are equal to those properly made from fresh meat would of course be ridiculous ; but the invention is most useful, and, in cases of long voyages, &c., most valuable. A tin or two of soup in the house has always this advantage — it furnishes an extra dish at almost a moment's notice for an unexpected guest. I will now proceed to explain how these tinned soups may be utilised and improved, if their contents are found to be not quite what was expected. Unfortunately, preserved soups differ immensely from one another in quality. I have no doubt, however, in time some means will be taken — possibly by Government inspection — so that uniformity of quality can be ensured. Very much, however, can be done by the cook to transform these soups from a flavourless concoction to a really nice soup, only recollect I do not mean that all soups preserved in tins require what cooks call " touching-up," bxit only that some do. Take, for instance, that most commonly-liought soup — mock turtle. If the tin is a good one, and the weather