White Tavern Turtle Soup Recipes

TURTLE SOUP

Steps:

• In a large soup pot over medium to high heat, melt 1/2 stick butter. Add turtle meat and brown. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper. Cook for about 18 to 20 minutes or until liquid is almost dry. Add onions, celery, garlic, and peppers, constantly stirring. Add thyme, oregano, and bay leaves and saute for about 22 minutes**. Add stock, bring to a boil, and simmer for 30 minutes. Skim any fat that comes to the top.
• While stock is simmering, make the roux. In a small saucepan, melt remaining butter over medium heat. Slowly add flour, a little at a time, constantly stirring with a wooden spoon. Be careful not to burn. After all of the flour has been added, cook until roux smells nutty, is pale in color, and has a consistency of wet sand, about 3 minutes. Set aside to let cool until soup is ready (roux should be cool when adding to hot soup).
• Using a whisk, stir the roux into the stock vigorously, adding a little at a time to prevent lumping. Simmer for about 25 minutes. Stir to prevent sticking on bottom. Add sherry and bring to a boil. Add hot sauce and Worcestershire sauce. Simmer and skim any fat or foam that comes to top. Add lemon juice and tomatoes and return to a simmer. Add spinach and eggs, return to a simmer and adjust seasoning.

TURTLE SOUP

Steps:

• In a heavy 4-qt. saucepan, bring turtle meat and water to a boil. Skim off foam. Chop 1 onion and set aside. Quarter the other onion; add to saucepan along with bay leaf, cayenne pepper and salt. Cover and simmer for 2 hours or until the meat is tender. Remove meat with a slotted spoon and cut into 1/2-in. cubes; set aside. Strain broth and set aside. Rinse and dry saucepan; melt butter over medium-high heat. Cook chopped onion until tender. Add flour; cook and stir until bubbly and lightly browned. Whisk in reserved broth; cook and stir until thickened. Reduce heat; stir in tomato puree and Worcestershire sauce. Simmer,, uncovered, for 10 minutes. Add chicken broth, eggs, lemon juice and meat. Simmer for 5 minutes or until heated through. Garnish with parsley if desired.

BOOKBINDER'S PHILADELPHIA SNAPPER SOUP

Steps:

• Place turtle or beef in stock pot with 1 1/2 quarts water. Bring to a boil. Skim during cooking. Simmer for 2 hours or until meat is tender.
• Strain meat from stock. Dice meat into 1/4 inch pieces. Set both aside.
• Cook vegetables in butter until onions are translucent. Add beef stock.
• In a small bowl, mix 1/4 cup water into paprika and flour until smooth. Add tomato purée and spices.
• Stir into beef stock until well blended. Bring to a boil; reduce heat, cover and simmer for 2 to 2 1/2 hours.
• Strain soup.
• Place vegetables into food processor or blender and purée.
• Mix cornstarch with remaining water and blend until smooth. Add to soup and cook 15 minutes, stirring, until stock is thickened.
• Add meat and vegetable purée.
• Remove from direct heat. Add sherry right before serving.

SHERRIED TURTLE SOUP

Steps:

• For the roux:
• Take 1/2 cup of the bacon fat and in a thick-bottomed pan cook the flour slowly stirring constantly to a brownish-brick red color. Set aside carefully and cool.
• For the Soup:
• In a thick-bottomed pot, heat the remaining bacon fat and brown the turtle meat and ground beef thoroughly. Add the bell pepper, celery, onions and garlic and sweat until translucent. Add the tomatoes, eggs, spinach, wine, sherry, stock, hot sauce, Worcestershire and bay leaves and simmer 1 1/2 hours.
• Using a microplane and cut-resistant gloves, remove the yellow zest from the lemons avoiding the white pith; add to the soup. Cut the zested lemons and squeeze juice into the soup.
• In a bowl, add the cooled roux, then ladle some of hot soup into the bowl whisking with a wire whip until a smooth paste is formed; add one more ladle to the bowl, then add the contents back to the soup. Season to taste with salt and pepper and simmer for 1 hour.
• Before serving, remove bay leaves.
• When serving, ladle the soup into bowls and top with additional sherry (3 tablespoons per bowl), green onions, parsley and a squeeze of lemon.