Turtle Soup, Green

Ingredients

• One turtle
• A glass of Madeira wine
• Two onions
• A bunch of sweet herbs (basil, any mint, stevia)
• Juice of one lemon
• Five quarts of water
• Five hard-boiled eggs
• One raw egg
• Two cups of beef broth
• One stick of butter
  
• A little oyster liquor
• One teaspoon cayenne
• One teaspoon mace
• Half a teaspoon of white sugar
• A pinch of salt
• A pack of crackers
• One cup of browned flour
  

Directions 

Soup

1. Chop up all turtle meat with the entrails and bones, set aside the fat.
2. Set aside roughly six tablespoonfuls of meat for the forcemeat balls, if there are no eggs in the turtle.
3. In a pot, place the meat, entrails, bones etc, and add the herbs, onions, pepper, salt, and four quarts of water.
4. If there are eggs in the turtle, boil in a separate vessel for four hours
   
5. Stew for five hours, never ceasing the boiling during that time.
6. After stewing, strain and then thicken with browned flour and simmer gently for another hour.
7. While simmering the stew, in another pan simmer the green fat in two quarts of water for one hour.
   
8. Before taking up the stew, add in the eggs or forcemeat balls. Along with that, add the lemon juice and wine once they have been beaten together (in a separate container, whisk them together).
9. Cut the fat into strips an inch long and add it to the stew.

Forcemeat Balls

1. Rub the finely chopped turtle meat and two hard boiled egg yolks into a smooth paste with one tablespoonful of butter and a little oyster liquor.
2. Season with cayenne, mace, white sugar, and salt.
3. Bind with one raw, beaten egg.
4. Bread with powdered crackers.
5. Fry in butter.
6. Add to soup when it is almost done.
   
   Source — The Unrivaled Cook-Book
   Prepared by John Waskom
   Louisiana Anthology
   September 29, 2023