This soup will be much improved, if, instead of water, it be made with the liquor meat has been boiled in; at tripe, cow-heel, and cook-shops, this may be had for little or nothing.
This soup has the advantage of being very soon and easily made, with no more fuel than is necessary to warm a room; those who have not tasted it, cannot imagine what a savoury and satisfying meal is produced by the combination of these cheap and homely ingredients.
If the generally-received opinion be true, that animal and vegetable foods afford nourishment in proportion to the quantity of oil, jelly, and mucilage, that can be extracted from them, this soup has strong claims to the attention of rational economists.
This soup is sometimes made with beef, or veal broth, or with fish, in the following manner:
Take flounders, eels, gudgeons, &c., and set them on to boil in cold water; when it is pretty nigh boiling, skim it well; and to three quarts put in a couple of onions, and as many carrots cut to pieces, some parsley, a dozen berries of black and Jamaica pepper, and about half a hundred craw-fish; take off the small claws and shells of the tails; pound them fine, and boil them with the broth about an hour; strain off, and break in some crusts of bread to thicken it, and, if you can get it, the spawn of a lobster; pound it, and put it to the soup; let it simmer very gently for a couple of minutes; put in your craw-fish to get hot, and the soup is ready.
_Obs._--One of my predecessors recommends craw-fish pounded alive, to sweeten the sharpness of the blood. Vide CLERMONT'S _Cookery_, p. 5, London, 1776.
"_Un des grands hommes de bouche de France_" says, "_Un bon coulis d'ecrevisses est le paradis sur la terre, et digne de la table des dieux_; and of all the tribe of shell-fish, which our industry and our sensuality bring from the bottom of the sea, the river, or the pond, the craw-fish is incomparably the most useful and the most delicious."
You must have three fine lively[211-*] young hen lobsters, and boil them, see No. 176; when cold, split the tails; take out the fish, crack the claws, and cut the meat into mouthfuls: take out the coral, and soft part of the body; bruise part of the coral in a mortar; pick out the fish from the chines; beat part of it with the coral, and with this make forcemeat balls, finely-flavoured with mace or nutmeg, a little grated lemon-peel, anchovy, and Cayenne; pound these with the yelk of an egg.