A head weighing twenty pounds, and ten pounds of stock meat, will make ten quarts of excellent soup, besides the two quarts of stock you have put by for made dishes, &c.
_Obs._ If there is more meat on the head than you wish to put in the soup, prepare it for a pie, and, with the addition of a calf's foot boiled tender, it will make an excellent ragoût pie; season it with zest, and a little minced onion, put in half a tea-cupful of stock, cover it with puff paste, and bake it one hour: when the soup comes from table, if there is a deal of meat and no soup, put it into a pie-dish, season it a little, and add some little stock to it; then cover it with paste, bake it one hour, and you have a good mock turtle pie.
This soup was eaten by the committee of taste with unanimous applause, and they pronounced it a very satisfactory substitute[220-*] for "the far-fetch'd and dear-bought" turtle; which is entirely indebted for its title of "sovereign of savouriness," to the rich soup with which it is surrounded.
Without its paraphernalia of subtle double relishes, a "starved turtle," has not more intrinsic sapidity than a "fatted calf." Friendly reader, it is really neither half so wholesome, nor half so toothsome. See Essence of Turtle, No. 343*, and _Obs._ to No. 493. To warm this soup, see No. 485.
To season it, to each gallon of soup put two table-spoonfuls of lemon-juice, see No. 407*, same of mushroom catchup (No. 439), and one of essence of anchovy (No. 433), half a pint of wine (this should be Madeira, or, if you wish to darken the colour of your soup, claret), a tea-spoonful of curry powder (No. 455), or a quarter of a drachm of Cayenne, and the peel of a lemon pared as thin as possible; let it simmer five minutes more, take out the lemon-peel, and the soup is ready for the tureen.
While the soup is doing, prepare for each tureen a dozen and a half of mock turtle forcemeat balls (to make these, see No. 375 or No. 376, No. 390 to No. 396); we prefer the stuffing ordered in No. 61, and a dozen egg balls; and put them into the tureen. Brain balls, or cakes, are a very elegant addition, and are made by boiling the brains for ten minutes, then putting them in cold water, and cutting them into pieces about as big as a large nutmeg; take savoury, or lemon-thyme dried and finely-powdered, nutmeg grated, and pepper and salt, and pound them all together; beat up an egg, dip the brains in it, and then roll them in this mixture, and make as much of it as possible stick to them; dip them in the egg again, and then in finely-grated and sifted bread-crumbs; fry them in hot fat, and send them up as a side-dish.