CLAM SOUP -1
Mince two dozen hard shell clams very fine. Fry half a minced onion in an ounce of butter; add to it a pint of hot water, a pinch of mace, four cloves, one allspice and six whole peppercorns. Boil fifteen minutes and strain into a saucepan; add the chopped clams and a pint of clam-juice or hot water; simmer slowly two hours; strain and rub the pulp through a sieve into the liquid. Return it to the saucepan and keep it lukewarm. Boil three half-pints of milk in a saucepan (previously wet with cold water, which prevents burning) and whisk it into the soup. Dissolve a teaspoonful of flour in cold milk, add it to the soup, taste for seasoning; heat it gently to near the boiling point; pour into a tureen previously heated with hot water, and serve with or without pieces of fried bread.
CLAM SOUP -2
Twenty-five clams chopped fine. Put over the fire the liquor that was drained from them, and a cup of water; add the chopped clams and boil half an hour; then season to taste with pepper and salt and a piece of butter as large as an egg; boil up again and add one quart of milk boiling hot, stir in a tablespoon of flour made to a cream with a little cold milk, or two crackers rolled fine. Some like a little mace and lemon juice in the seasoning.
GREEN TURTLE SOUP.
One turtle, two onions, a bunch of sweet herbs, juice of one lemon, five quarts of water, a glass of Madeira.
After removing the entrails, cut up the coarser parts of the turtle meat and bones. Add four quarts of water, and stew four hours with the herbs, onions, pepper and salt. Stew very slowly; do not let it cease boiling during this time. At the end of four hours strain the soup, and add the finer parts of the turtle and the green fat, which has been simmered one hour in two quarts of water. Thicken with brown flour; return to the soup-pot, and simmer gently for an hour longer. If there are eggs in the turtle, boil them in a separate vessel for four hours, and throw into the soup before taking up. If not, put in force meatballs; then the juice of the lemon, and the wine; beat up at once and pour out. Some cooks add the finer meat before straining, boiling all together five hours; then strain, thicken and put in the green fat, cut into lumps an inch long. This makes a handsomer soup than if the meat is left in.
LOBSTER SOUP
Have ready a good broth made of three pounds of veal boiled slowly in as much water as will cover it, till the meat is reduced to shreds. It must then be well strained.
Having boiled one fine middle-sized lobster, extract all the meat from the body and claws. Bruise part of the coral in a mortar, and also an equal quantity of the meat. Mix them well together. Add mace, cayenne, salt and pepper, and make them up into force meat balls, binding the mixture with the yolk of an egg slightly beaten. Take three quarts of the veal broth and put it into the meat of the lobster cut into mouthfuls. Boil it together about twenty minutes.
Then thicken it with the remaining coral (which you must first rub through a sieve), and add the force meat balls and a little butter rolled in flour. Simmer it gently for ten minutes, but do not let it come to a boil, as that will injure the color. Serve with small dice of bread fried brown in butter.
Lobster Soup with Milk.
Meat of a small lobster, chopped fine; three crackers, rolled fine, butter size of an egg, salt and pepper to taste and a speck of cayenne. Mix all in the same pan, and add, gradually, a pint of boiling milk, stirring all the while. Boil up once, and serve.
TURTLE SOUP FROM BEANS.
Soak over night one quart of black beans; next day boil them in the proper quantity of water, say a gallon, then dip the beans out of the pot and strain them through a colander. Then return the flour of the beans, thus pressed, into the pot in which they were boiled. Tie up in a thin cloth some thyme, a teaspoonful of summer savory and parsley, and let it boil in the mixture. Add a tablespoonful of cold butter, salt and pepper. Have ready four hard-boiled yolks of eggs quartered, and a few force meat balls; add this to the soup with a sliced lemon, and half a glass of wine just before serving the soup. This approaches so near in flavor to the real turtle soup that few are able to distinguish the difference.
OYSTER SOUP -1
Two quarts of oysters, one quart of milk, two tablespoonfuls of butter, one teacupful of hot water; pepper, salt. Strain all the liquor from the oysters; add the water, and heat. When near the boil, add the seasoning, then the oysters. Cook about five minutes from the time they begin to simmer, until they "ruffle." Stir in the butter, cook one minute, and pour into the tureen. Stir in the boiling milk and send to table. Some prefer all water in place of milk.
OYSTER SOUP -2
Scald one gallon of oysters in their own liquor. Add one quart of rich milk to the liquor, and when it comes to a boil, skim out the oysters and set aside. Add the yolks of four eggs, two good tablespoonfuls of butter, and one of flour, all mixed well together, but in this order -first, the milk, then, after beating the eggs, add a little of the hot liquor to them gradually, and stir them rapidly into the soup. Lastly, add the butter and whatever seasoning you fancy besides plain pepper and salt, which must both be put in to taste with caution. Celery salt most persons like extremely; others would prefer a little marjoram or thyme; others again mace and a bit of onion. Use your own discretion in this regard.