Turtle Soup

Ingredients

• Take a turtle weighing about fifty pounds.
• Put into it two pounds of lean ham cut small.
• twelve pounds of leg of veal broken up.
• Put them into a large vessel of boiling water.

Method

1. 1

   Cut off the head of the turtle, hang it up by the hind fins, and let it drain all night.

2. 2

   Cut off the fins and divide the calipash from the calipee.

3. 3

   Remove the intestines and keep the fat.

4. 4

   Boil the calipash, calipee, head, and feet in boiling water until the fins can be peeled.

5. 5

   Cut the meat into pieces and cool.

6. 6

   Stew the heart, liver, lights, and kidneys in the stock for three hours.

7. 7

   Add the ham, veal, fins, head, and inside flesh to a saucepan with stock and simmer until reduced.

8. 8

   Add the liquor from the previous step and simmer until tender.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Cassell's dictionary of cookery (1892) by Cassell & Company, page 2079. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

Turtle Soup. — Before making tui-tle soup it is necessary to have several large pans and plenty of hot water ready for use. Take a turtle weighing about fifty pounds. Cut off the head, hang it up by the hind fins, 'and let it drain all night. Cut off the fins at the joints, and divide the calipash or upper shell from the calipee or lower shell by pressing heavily upon it and cutting round it about the depth of two inches. Let the water, &c., drain from it, and remove and throw away the intestines, carefully preserving, however, any fat that may be near them. Cut the flesh off along the spine, and let the knife slope towards the bones for fear of breaking the gall, which must on no account be allowed to touch the flesh, and which should be thrown quite away as soon as it is fovmd. Cut off aU the flesh from the members and let them drain. In cutting up the turtle remember to keep the green fat separate from the rest that its colour may be preserved. It is most highly priced by epicures. Throw the heart, lights, liver, and kidney into cold water. Put the calipash and calipee, the head and the feet, into a large vessel of boiling water, and let them simmer gently for a few minutes until the fins can be peeled and the shell scraped. Boil the back and the breast a little longer tiU the bones can be taken out. Cut out the soft meat, divide it into pieces an inch square, and place these in a single layer between two dishes to cool. Put the heart, liver, lights, and kidneys with the bones into a fresh saucepan, pour over them the stock in which the meat was blanched, and let them stew gently for three hours. Afterwards pour the liquor off and let it cool. Take a large clean saucepan. Put into it two pounds of lean ham cut small, twelve pounds of leg of veal broken up,

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.