Skip to content

Beta This app is in Beta Testing

The Treatment of the Carapace, the Plastron, and the Flippers

No ratings yet
France

Known as a French recipe, with similar versions prepared across other nations.

Ingredients 4 ingredients

  1. Broth
  2. Cut
  3. Water
  4. 3 lbs. of the beef

Cook safely

Keep children and pets away from the hob and the oven, and keep oven gloves and a lid within reach.

  • Boiling water and steam. Turn pan handles inward, away from the edge of the hob. Lift lids away from you, and pour hot water away from your body: steam burns too.
  • Sharp knives. Cut on a board that doesn't slip (a damp cloth under it helps), and curl the fingers of the hand that holds the food.

Method

  1. The carapace and plastron, which are the outside bony framework of the turtle, constitute the only portions wherefrom the gelatinous flesh, used as the garnish of the soup, are obtained.
  2. Saw the carapace into six or eight pieces, and the plastron into four.
  3. Put these pieces with the flippers into boiling water or into steam, to blanch.
  4. Withdraw the flippers as soon as they are sufficiently stiff for their skin to be removed, and leave the pieces of carapace and plastron to blanch for five minutes, in order that they may admit of being scraped.
  5. Now cool the pieces of carapace and plastron and the flippers, and put them into a stewpan containing enough water to abundantly cover them.
  6. Set to boil;
  7. garnish with vegetables, as in the case of an ordinary broth, and add a small quantity of turtle herbs.
  8. Five or six hours should be allowed for the cooking of the carapace and the plastron, but the flippers, which are put to further uses in other culinary preparations, should be withdrawn at the end of five hours.
  9. When the pieces are taken from the cooking-liquor, remove all the flesh from the bones, and cool the former;
  10. then trim it carefully, and cut it into little squares of one and one-half inches side.
  11. It is these squares together with the green fat (poached in salted water and sliced) which constitute the garnish of the soup.
  12. The Preparation of Turtle Soup.—There are two modes of procedure, though their respective results are almost identical.
  13. 1.
  14. Make a broth of the flesh of turtle alone, and then add a very gelatinous beef consommé to it, in pursuance of the method employed when the turtle soup is bought ready-made.
  15. This procedure is practically the best, more particularly if the soup has to be kept some time.
  16. 2.
  17. Make an ordinary broth of shin of beef, using the same quantity of the latter as of turtle.
  18. Also include half a calf’s foot and one-half lb.
  19. of calf’s shin per 3 lbs.
  20. of the beef.
  21. Add the flesh of the turtle, or, in the event of its being thought necessary to clarify, which operation I do not in the least advise, reserve it for that purpose.
  22. The condiments and aromatics being the same for both methods, I shall now describe the procedure for method No.
  23. 1.

Plating

Cookware for this recipe

  • Saucepan
  • Chef's knife
  • Cutting board