Turtle Soup

Ingredients

• a quarter of a pound of dried turtle flesh
• three pints of stock

Method

1. 1

   Soak the turtle-flesh in cold water for three days, changing the water daily.

2. 2

   Cut the flesh into small pieces and boil for about twelve hours in strong stock.

3. 3

   Ensure the stock is prepared well, as it is crucial for good turtle soup.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Practical home cookery (1906) by A. G. Payne, page 84. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

TURTLE SOUP. 159 man’s friend, the baker’s oven. Early on the day the goose is carried there, prepared often in the somewhat primitive fashion of a heap of sage and onion on one side of the dish, and a pile of potatoes on the other. It is to be hoped that the baker’s man is an honest one. A small piece cut off each joint of meat before baking, on Sunday, too often maintains the man for the week. The poor know to their cost how much meat will shrink in the baking. On Christmas Day the number of geese sent to each baker’s is something extra- ordinary. An ingenious baker once solved the following prob- lem : — How to make a very small goose into a very large one. He purchased the smallest and cheapest that could be found, and substituted it for the smallest one sent to him to bake. By the simple method of making each person have the next smallest goose to the one he sent, the baker retained for himself the finest of the lot. But we will now soar into the more aristocratic region of mock-turtle soup and boiled codfish, roast sirloin of beef, boiled turkey and oyster sauce, plum pudding and mince pies. At least, we think we have heard of such dishes at this season of the year as being occasionally used. However, one word of warning. The following awful catastrophe actually occurred : Scene — A dinner- party. Time — Soon after Christmas. Host — A nephew, with a wife and very large family. Important Guest An uncle, rich — very rich ; a bachelor ; elderly, but irritable. At the moment the covers are taken off, he rises from the table, wrath written on his brow : “ I will stand it no longer ; give me my hat. This is the twelfth day running I have had roast beef and boiled turkey. 1 11 stand it no longer ! ” Exit in a rage. Now, as I have said before, there is such a i6o- PRACTICAL HOME COOKERY. demand for mock-turtle soup about Christmas-time that calves’ heads have been known to fetch a guinea apiece ; but every housekeeper knows how exceedingly expensive they are at this season. The change, however, of real turtle soup for mock is in the opinion of most people a change for the better, and we will fulfil the promise we made in another chapter, and describe as clearly as we can how to make real turtle soup from the dried turtle flesh, at a less cost than mock-turtle soup can be made from calves’ head when the latter is very dear. The first thing to be done is, of course, to purchase some of the dried flesh, which is generally about ten shillings a pound, and can be obtained from any of the large London provision merchants — and is occasionally kept by the better-class grocers. Now the general fault that we have found people express in regard to cookery-books, is that they in- variably describe how to make such large quantities that the recipes are only adapted to hotels. It is evident, too, that if a cook can make three pints of soup, she could make three gallons. We will therefore describe how to make a small quantity of turtle soup — viz. three pints, which, by-the-bye, is amply sufficient for ten people, or even more. Let those who doubt this — and they will be many — go at once, and see how many ladlefuls there are in a pint ; the average is five. Now, at the commencement of a good dinner one ladleful is ample for each person. Three pints of so

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