2 qts. veal or chicken broth, well strained.
1 large lobster.
2 eggs—boiled hard.
Boil the lobster and extract the meat, setting aside the coral in a
cool place. Cut or chop up the meat found in the claws. Rub the yolks
of the eggs to a paste with a teaspoonful of butter. Pound and rub the
claw-meat in the same manner, and mix with the yolks. Beat up a raw
egg, and stir into the paste; season with pepper, salt, and, if you
like, mace; make into force-meat balls, and set away with the coral to
cool and harden. By this time the stock should be well heated, when,
put in the rest of the lobster-meat cut into square bits. Boil fifteen
minutes, which time employ in pounding the coral in a Wedgewood mortar,
or earthenware bowl, rubbing it into a fine, even paste, with the
addition of a few spoonfuls of the broth, gradually worked in until it
is about the consistency of boiled starch. Stir _very_ carefully into
the hot soup, which should, in the process, blush into a roseate hue.
Lastly, drop in the force-meat balls, after which do not stir, lest
they should break. Simmer a few minutes to cook the raw egg; but, if
allowed to boil, the soup will darken.
Crab soup may be made in the same way, excepting the coralline process,
crabs being destitute of that dainty.