Turtle Soup Recipe

This soup is so often required for invalids, as well as for the table,

that an easy and comparatively inexpensive method of preparing it cannot

fail to be acceptable. Nelson's Beef Tea or Extract of Meat will be used

instead of fresh beef, and Bellis's Sun-dried Turtle instead of live

turtle. If convenient it is desirable to soak the dried turtle all

night, but it can be used without doing so. Put it on to boil in the

water in which it was soaked, in the proportion of one quart with a

teaspoonful of salt to a quarter of a pound of the turtle. Add two or

three onions peeled and quartered, a small bit of mace and sliced

lemon-peel, and simmer gently for four or five hours, or until the

turtle is tender enough to divide easily with a spoon. Stock of any kind

may be used instead of water, and as the liquid boils away more should

be added, to keep the original quantity. Herbs for the proper flavouring

of the Turtle Soup are supplied by Bellis; these should be put in about

an hour before the turtle is finished, and be tied in muslin. When done

take out the turtle and divide it into neat little pieces; strain the

liquor in which it was cooked, and having boiled it up, stir in the

contents of two tins of Nelson's Extract of Meat, previously soaked for

a few minutes. Mix smooth in a gill of cold water a teaspoonful of

French potato-flour and of Vienna flour, stir into the soup, and when it

has thickened put in the turtle meat; let it get hot through, add a

wine-glassful of sherry, a dessertspoonful of lemon-juice, and salt and

pepper to taste, and serve at once. It is necessary to have "Bellis's

Sun-dried Turtle," imported by T. K. Bellis, Jeffrey's Square, St. Mary

Axe, London (sold in boxes), for this soup, because it is warranted

properly prepared. An inferior article, got up by negroes from turtle

found dead, is frequently sold at a low price; but it is unnecessary to

say it is not good or wholesome.

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