No. 62 — Crayfish Soup

Prepare white broth from 2½ Russian pounds of beef and ½ pound of veal shank, with roots, spices and a bunch of parsley, celery and leek greens.

Put 30 live crayfish into strongly salted boiling water with kvass and a bunch of fresh dill or one tablespoon of dried dill. Cook for ¼ hour until red, let cool in the same water and drain. When cold, remove the tail meat, then the internal contents and legs, which the author says to pound together.

Discard the small internal sac directly below the eyes. Carefully scrape flesh and fat from around the shells; add ten cleaned crayfish tails and chop fine. Mix with ⅛ Russian pound of cooked soft rice, about ½ spoonful of butter, two or three allspice berries, one or two black peppercorns, a little nutmeg, chopped parsley and dill. Fill all thirty empty shells with this stuffing.

Fry the removed innards and crushed legs in a spoonful of butter until red, stirring and adding broth by spoonfuls. Dust with ½ spoonful of flour, fry, add ½ glass of sour cream, pour in some strained stock and boil thoroughly. Strain and rub through a sieve, dilute with the remaining broth, add the stuffed shells and puréed soup roots and bring to the boil.

Add the remaining twenty crayfish tails and heat until very hot but do not boil again. Put chopped dill into a tureen, pour in the soup and offer more sour cream separately.

To provide

Where crayfish are expensive, the author suggests making a separate sauce from the tail meat and leaving the tails out of both the soup and its stuffing.