The Galloping Gourmet Presents: 70's recipes

Epicurus.com Recipes

Lady Morgan English Fish Soup

1 medium brill; filleted
1 sole; filleted
1 small eel; filleted
brill, sole, and eel trimmings and; from the above
1 bottle champagne
1 lemon; pulped
parings of the pound of truffles
2 onions; finely chopped
1 carrot; finely chopped
1 celery stalk; finely chopped
2 leeks; finely chopped
1/2 bay leaf
1 pinch nutmeg
1 pinch cayenne pepper
2 whole cloves
2 anchovies; well rinsed
salt; to taste
veal stock
1 large whiting
crayfish butter
consomme
1 pound truffles; pared
consomme
20 mushrooms
24 oysters
24 shrimp
24 crayfish tails
consomme

First make the fish stock: In a pot combine the fish bones and trimmings, the champagne, lemon pulp, truffle parings, onions, carrot, celery, leeks, bay leaf, nutmeg, cayenne, cloves, anchovies, and salt -- bring to a boil, then simmer for an hour. Put through a silk sieve and pour it into a good veal stock. Then make fish scallops: Saute the filets of brill, sole, and eel and shape them into scallops. Then make quenelles: make a forcemeat of the whiting and crayfish butter. Use coffee spoons to form them into quenelles, then poach them in the consomme. Then prepare the truffles: Poach them in consomme, then cut them an inch in diameter with a root slicer -- then cut them into scallops 2-inches thick. Then, serially, blanch the mushrooms, oysters, shrimp, and crayfish tails in consomme. Then clarify the broth of the soup, mixing together the broth, the fish stock, and all the consommes. Bring to a boil. Presentation: In a soup tureen, place the drained quenelles, the drained fish scallops, the truffles, mushrooms, oysters, shrimp, and crayfish. When ready to serve, pour the boiling hot broth into the tureen and take to table. Whew! (Creation of the great French Chef Marie Antoine Careme, 1784-1833) Comments: This artist, Marie Antoine Careme, was chef to Talleyrand, Tsar Alexander I, George IV, and Baron Rothschild. He lived and continues to live in an entirely different dimension from us and this soup collection. Nevertheless, for the record, here is one of his simplest creations. He says, "I served it for the first time at Boulogne, near Paris, in the household of Monsieur le Baron de Rothschild, the very day that I had the honor of being presented to the celebrated Lady Morgan."