330. Bisque Or Snipes A La Bonne Bouche

Procure six fat snipes, perfectly fresh and not fishy; fillet them, and follow the instructions given for making the bisque of quails a la Prince Albert (No. 328), but omitting the crayfish butter. Warm the puree of snipes just before it is wanted for table, pour it into a soup-tureen containing the scollops made from half the fillets, and three dozen small quenelles made from the remainder.

Send up with this soup, to be handed round, some croutons of fried bread cut in small circular pieces about the eighth of an inch 7 thick; a circular incision having been made on one side of the bread before it is fried, the inner part is afterward easily taken out, and in its place should be put a farce, made with the trail of half the snipes (the remainder should be used in the puree). This farce is to be prepared thus: -

Put the trail into a small stewpan with a little fresh butter, pepper, and salt, and after frying it lightly on the fire for a minute or two, add a tablespoonful of good brown sauce, and then rub it through a hair-sieve with a wooden spoon. Fill the croutons with this farce, smoothing the surface with a small knife; and previously to serving them, put them on a sauta-pan in the oven for five minutes to warm them; serve them on a plate, to be handed round with the soup.

Take care not to throw the croutons into the soup, as that would destroy their crispness.

331. Bisque Of Crayfish A L'Ancienxe

To make soup enough for sixteen persons, procure sixty crayfish, from which remove the gut containing the gall, in the following manner: - Take a firm hold of the crayfish with the left hand, so as to avoid being pinched by its claws; with the thumb and fore-finger of the right hand pinch the extreme end of the central fin of its tail, and, with a sudden jerk, the gut will be withdrawn. Then mince or cut into small dice, a carrot, an onion, one head of celery, and a few parsley roots; to these add a bay-leaf, a sprig of thyme, a little minionette pepper, and two ounces of butter. Put these ingredients into a stewpan, and fry them on the fire for ten minutes-; then throw in the crayfish, and pour on them a bottle of French white wine. Allow this to boil, and then add a quart of strong consomme, and let them continue gently boiling for half an hour. Then pick out the crayfish, and strain the broth through a napkin by pressure into a basin, in order to extract all the essence from the vegetables. Pick the shell off fifty of the crayfish tails, trim them neatly, and set them aside until wanted. Reserve some of the spawn, and also half the body shells, with which to make the crayfish butter (No. 184) to finish the soup. Take all that remains, and add thereto six anchovies washed for the purpose, and also a plate of crusts of French rolls fried of a light brown color in butter. Pound all these thoroughly, and then put them into a stewpan with the broth that has been reserved in a basin, and having warmed the bisque thus prepared, rub it through a tammy into a puree. Then take the puree up into a soup-pot: finish by incorporating therewith the crayfish butter, season with a little cayenne pepper and the juice of half a lemon. Pour the bisque quite hot into the soup-tureeu containing the crayfish tails, and send to table.