Bookbinder Red Snapper Soup Recipes

Steps:

• Place turtle or beef in stock pot with 1 1/2 quarts water. Bring to a boil. Skim during cooking. Simmer for 2 hours or until meat is tender.
• Strain meat from stock. Dice meat into 1/4 inch pieces. Set both aside.
• Cook vegetables in butter until onions are translucent. Add beef stock.
• In a small bowl, mix 1/4 cup water into paprika and flour until smooth. Add tomato purée and spices.
• Stir into beef stock until well blended. Bring to a boil; reduce heat, cover and simmer for 2 to 2 1/2 hours.
• Strain soup.
• Place vegetables into food processor or blender and purée.
• Mix cornstarch with remaining water and blend until smooth. Add to soup and cook 15 minutes, stirring, until stock is thickened.
• Add meat and vegetable purée.
• Remove from direct heat. Add sherry right before serving.

Steps:

• To make soup base, heat olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat; add carrots, celery, garlic, onion, red bell pepper, and green bell pepper; cook, stirring frequently, about 4 minutes.
• Stir in peppercorns, bay leaf, tomato paste, thyme, rosemary, and cilantro; cook 2 minutes and add 7 cups of the vegetable broth; heat to boil.
• Melt butter in a small saucepan; add flour and cornstarch, cook, stirring constantly, 4 to 5 minutes.
• Slowly whisk in remaining 1 cup broth until mixture is smooth; add mixture to soup base; cover and simmer over medium-low heat 20 minutes.
• Taste and adjust seasonings.
• Strain through a fine-mesh sieve or cheesecloth; discard solids and return broth to pot.
• To make snapper, heat water to boil in a medium-sized saucepan over medium-high heat; add onions and celery; blanch until soft, about 3 minutes.
• Remove with a slotted spoon and add to broth.
• Boil fish in the same water until cooked through.
• Remove fish from water; flake very finely with a fork.
• Stir snapper and sherry, if desired, into soup base; heat through.

Steps:

• In a large soup kettle cook the frozen snapper (in the shell) in the 3 quarts water for 90 minutes.
• When the turtle meat is tender, remove the snapper from the pot and allow to cool. Pick the meat from the shell, keep warm, and set aside.
• Put the turtle shell back into the snapper stock, along with the beef extract, beef stock, carrots, celery, onion, marjoram, salt and pepper (to taste), tomato puree, Tabasco, bay leaf, and garlic.
• Simmer for 30 minutes and strain.
• In a separate container mix together the melted butter with the flour. Beat the butter/flour mixture into the soup until smooth.
• Cut the snapper meat into small pieces and add to soup. Add the chopped hard-cooked eggs to soup. Stir in the sherry and sliced lemons. Let soup simmer for an additional 30 minutes.
• Presentation: Serve soup in a tureen. Into each soup bowl ladle some of the snapper meat, a couple slices lemon, and some soup. Pass a small pitcher of sherry and let each person add some to his/her soup according to taste.
• Using red snapper instead of turtle: Cook the skin, head, and bones of the fish with some of the flesh for 90 minutes in 3 quarts of water. Proceed with recipe. Dice about a cup and a half of the snapper fillets and add them to the soup for the last half hour.