Goose or Duck Giblet Soup.216-*—(No. 244.)
Scald and pick very clean a couple sets of goose, or four of duck giblets (the fresher the better); wash them well in warm water, in two or three waters; cut off the noses and split the heads; divide the gizzards and necks into mouthfuls. If the gizzards are not cut into pieces before they are done enough, the rest of the meat, &c. will be done too much; and knives and forks have no business in a soup-plate. Crack the bones of the legs, and put them into a stew-pan; cover them with cold water: when they boil, take off the[217] scum as it rises; then put in a bundle of herbs, such as lemon-thyme, winter savoury, or marjoram, about three sprigs of each, and double the quantity of parsley, an onion, twenty berries of allspice, the same of black pepper; tie them all up in a muslin bag, and set them to stew very gently till the gizzards are tender: this will take from an hour and a half to two hours, according to the size and age of the giblets: take them up with a skimmer, or a spoon full of holes, put them into the tureen, and cover down close to keep warm till the soup is ready.
To thicken the soup. Melt an ounce and a half of butter in a clean stew-pan; stir in as much flour as will make it into a paste; then pour to it by degrees a ladleful of the giblet liquor; add the remainder by degrees; let it boil about half an hour, stirring it all the while for fear it should burn; skim it, and strain it through a fine sieve into a basin; wash out the stew-pan; then return the soup into it, and season it with a glass of wine, a table-spoonful of mushroom catchup, and a little salt; let it have one boil up; and then put the giblets in to get hot, and the soup is ready.
Obs. Thus managed, one set of goose, or two of duck giblets (which latter may sometimes be had for 3d.), will make a quart of healthful, nourishing soup: if you think the giblets alone will not make the gravy savoury enough, add a pound of beef or mutton, or bone of a knuckle of veal, and heighten its “piquance” by adding a few leaves of sweet basil, the juice of half a Seville orange or lemon, and half a glass of wine, and a little of No. 343* to each quart of soup.
Those who are fond of forcemeat may slip the skin off the neck, and fill it with No. 378; tie up the other end tight; put it into the soup about half an hour before you take it up, or make some nice savoury balls of the duck stuffing, No. 61.
Obs. Bespeak the giblets a couple of days before you desire to have them: this is a favourite soup when the giblets are done till nicely tender, but yet not overboiled. Giblets may be had from July to January; the fresher they are the better.
N.B. This is rather a family-dish than a company one; the bones cannot be well picked without the help of alive pincers.
Since Tom Coryat introduced forks, A. D. 1642, it has not been the fashion to put “pickers and stealers” into soup.
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