Vincent Price Bookbinder Snapper Soup

Julesong's Note:

Here is the Bookbinder Snapper Soup recipe from Vincent Price's "A Treasury of Great Recipes" (1965). It differs from the Chicago Tribune Good Eating Cookbook version in various ways, most notably by being the original and uses snapping turtle. Mr. Price notes: "...you can make a sort of 'mock snapper' soup using a red snapper." Instructions on how to make the subsitution are in the recipe. This is an old fashioned recipe, and doesn't take many shortcuts. Info on the "Old Original Bookbinders" Philadelphia restaurant is available on Wikipedia.

• Total Time: 2 hrs 50 mins
• Prep Time: 20 mins
• Cook Time: 2 hrs 30 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 12

• 5 lbs frozen snapping turtle (snapping turtle in the shell)
• 3 quarts water
• 3 tablespoons beef extract
• 3 quarts beef stock
• 2 carrots , chopped
• 2 stalks celery , chopped
• 3 medium onions , chopped
• ½ teaspoon dried marjoram
• salt & freshly ground black pepper , to taste
• 2 cups tomato puree (sauce)
• 1 dash Tabasco sauce
• 1 bay leaf (fresh, if possible)
• 2 garlic cloves , minced
• ½ cup melted butter
• 1 ½ cups flour
• 3 hard-cooked eggs
• 1 cup dry sherry
• 2 lemons , halved and thinly sliced (24 slices)

Directions:

1. In a large soup kettle cook the frozen snapper (in the shell) in the 3 quarts water for 90 minutes.
2. When the turtle meat is tender, remove the snapper from the pot and allow to cool. Pick the meat from the shell, keep warm, and set aside.
3. Put the turtle shell back into the snapper stock, along with the beef extract, beef stock, carrots, celery, onion, marjoram, salt and pepper (to taste), tomato puree, Tabasco, bay leaf, and garlic.
4. Simmer for 30 minutes and strain.
5. In a separate container mix together the melted butter with the flour. Beat the butter/flour mixture into the soup until smooth.
6. Cut the snapper meat into small pieces and add to soup. Add the chopped hard-cooked eggs to soup. Stir in the sherry and sliced lemons. Let soup simmer for an additional 30 minutes.
7. Presentation: Serve soup in a tureen. Into each soup bowl ladle some of the snapper meat, a couple slices lemon, and some soup. Pass a small pitcher of sherry and let each person add some to his/her soup according to taste.
8. Using red snapper instead of turtle: Cook the skin, head, and bones of the fish with some of the flesh for 90 minutes in 3 quarts of water. Proceed with recipe. Dice about a cup and a half of the snapper fillets and add them to the soup for the last half hour.