Miss Parloa's kitchen companion

When the first mixture has cooked for the proper period, strain it over that in the second stew-pan. Mix all these ingredients thoroughly, and rub through a tine sieve. Return to the fire, and add the butter and flour, rubbed together. Cook five minutes longer; then add the cream, heated in a double-boiler, the remainder of the crab meat, and the salt and pepper. Let the soup boil up once, and serve without delay. If one choose, a table-spoonful of brandy and three of sherry may be added to the bisque after it is taken from the stove. A table-spoonful of lobster coral and the shells of two crabs may be pounded with a table-spoonful of butter, and cooked with the crabs to give the bisque a fine color. Lobster Bisque. For this soup there will be required a lobster weighing five pounds, one pint and a half of chicken stock, one quart of cream, one scant pint of stale bread, free of crust, one table-spoonful of salt, one-fourth of a teaspoonful of white pepper, one-tenth of a teaspoonful of cayenne, one bay leaf, one sprig of parsley, one blade of celery, a large slice of onion, a small piece of whole mace, a slight grating of nutmeg, three table-spoonfuls of butter, and one of flour. Remove the meat of the lobster from the shell. Cut in cubes the tenderest part of the meat taken from the claws, — there should be about half a pint, — and put away until serving-time. Pound the remainder to paste. Now put one table-spoonful of butter, four of the small claws, and the coral from the lobster into the mortar, and pound until a smooth paste is formed. Hard pounding will be required to accomplish this. Put the pounded meat and the coral, shell, and butter in a stew-pan with the herbs, mace, vegetables, and half the stock, and cook for an hour, being careful that the mixture does not bubble after it has once been heated to the boiling-point, though it should still be kept on the stove, in a cooler place, and kept heated almost to the boiling-point. At the end of half an hour put the bread and the remaining stock in a stew-pan, and cook for twenty minutes, keeping at the boiling-point all the while; then strain the contents of the first stew-pan into the stew-pan remaining on the stove, pressing every particle of moisture from the meat and seasoning. Rub this new mixture through a French fine sieve ; then return it to the fire, and add salt, pepper, and a slight grating of nutmeg. Rub the remaining two table-spoonfuls of butter with the flour until a smooth, light mixture is formed, and stir this into the soup. Simmer for ten minutes. When the butter and flour are added to the soup, put the cream on the stove in the double-boiler. It will be hot at the end of the ten minutes ; add it, with the cubes of lobster, to the soup. Let the soup boil up once, and serve it. When making this bisque, if there be no coral in the lobster, pound six of the small claws to powder, and mix with one table-spoonful of butter. Use this to give the soup a pink color. Or, in the absence of coral, the color may be imparted by adding to the bisque, just as it is to be. served, half a cupful of strained hot tomato. Bisque of Oysters.