Snapper Soup

Snapping turtles were once prized for their meat. From the Pennsylvania Dutch chapter of the United States Regional Cookbook, Culinary Arts Institute of Chicago 1947. If you don't have access to turtle meat, feel free to sub chicken.

• Ready In: 3 hrs 40 mins
• Serves: 12

Ingredients

• 3 1⁄2 lbs  veal knuckle
• 1  cup  fat (chicken fat preferred, but whatever you want to use is fine)
• 3  onions, peeled and minced
• 2  stalks celery, chopped
• 2  carrots, peeled and diced
• 1⁄4 teaspoon thyme
• 1⁄2 teaspoon marjoram
• 3  whole cloves
• 1  bay leaf
•  salt and pepper, to taste
• 1  cup flour
• 3 -4  quarts beef broth
• 2  cups tomatoes, strained
• 2  cups sherry wine
• 1  dash Tabasco sauce
• 3  slices lemons
• 1  egg, hard cooked and chopped
• 1  snapping  turtle meat, cut into pieces

Directions

1. Have the butcher break the veal knuckles into pieces.
2. Place in a roasting pan with chicken fat, onions, celery, carrots, thyme, marjoram, cloves, bay leaf, salt and pepper.
3. Bake in an oven preheated to 400F until brown.
4. Remove from oven and add flour, mixing well and cook for an additional 30 minutes.
5. Pour browned mixture into a large soup kettle; add broth and tomatoes and simmer for 3 hours.
6. Combine meat with 1 cup sherry, salt, Tabasco and lemon; simmer 10 minutes.
7. Strain soup and combine the two mixtures.
8. Add egg, remaining sherry and serve at once.