Potage à la Créole.—Buy a medium-sized crab, and
have it sent in uncooked but cleaned; break up
the legs, but keep the body and claws whole. Put
these into a pan with a bouquet (containing besides
thyme, parsley, bay leaf and green onion, a spray of two
of sweet basil and marjoram), ten or twelve pepper
corns, and enough second stock (either veal, poultry,
or muttonshank stock), to cover it all thoroughly.
Bring it all to the boil, then draw it to the side of the
stove and let it simmer for forty to fifty minutes. Now
strain it and serve with the flesh of the claws and
body, flaked with two forks into little pieces, in the
soup. This soup may be served in two ways. One
is to add a little marsala to it and send it to table
with quartered lemon and cayenne pepper handed
round as if it were a form of turtle; the other and
to my mind the most delicate, is to add a good glass
ful of chablis or sauterne and a delicate little pluche
of tarragon, chervil, and tiny sprays of parsley.
But this is simply a question of taste.