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Green Turtle Soup Recipe

United States

Turtle soup is a soup made from the flesh of the turtle, often the green turtle or, especially in the United States, the snapping turtle, in which case it is commonly referred to as snapper soup (not to be confused with red snapper soup, which is made from the fish called a red snapper). This recipe is adapted from

Ingredients

Forcemeat (optional)

  • 6 tablespoons finely-chopped turtle meat
  • 2 hard-boiled egg yolks
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • Oyster juice/liquor (optional)
  • Ground cayenne pepper
  • Ground mace
  • ½ teaspoon sugar
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 2 eggs
  • Cracker crumbs

Soup

  • 1 whole turtle, cleaned
  • 2 onions
  • 1 bunch of sweet herbs
  • Brown flour
  • 1 lemon, juiced
  • 1 glass of Madeira wine

Procedure

Forcemeat (optional)

  1. Rub the minced turtle, yolks, butter, oyster liquor, cayenne, mace, sugar, and salt together to make a paste.
  2. Mix in one of the eggs.
  3. Shape the mixture into small balls. Dip in egg, then cracker crumbs.
  4. Pan-fry in butter.

Soup

  1. After removing the entrails, cut up the coarser parts of the turtle meat and bones. Separate out the finer meat.
  2. Place the coarse turtle in a pot with the onions, herbs, pepper, and salt. Cover with 4 quarts (4 liters) water, and simmer for 4 hours. Strain the broth, and discard the solids.
  3. Simmer the finer turtle meat and the green fat for 1 hour in 2 quarts of water.
  4. If there are eggs in the turtle, simmer them for 4 hours in water.
  5. Reheat the broth in a pot, and add the fine turtle meat. Thicken with brown flour, and simmer gently for 1 hour.
  6. Add the simmered eggs and/or forcemeat, lemon juice, and wine.
  7. Serve hot.

Adapted from Wikibooks Cookbook · Cookbook:Green Turtle Soup, CC BY-SA 3.0.