Bisque
A French classic and one of the few dishes where the shells are the main ingredient rather than waste. All the flavour comes from roasting, crushing and simmering them. Two steps decide the result: the shells must be browned hard, since it is the Maillard reaction rather than the shellfish that gives bisque its depth, and everything must be forced through a fine sieve, twice — the velvet texture is this soup's definition, not its decoration.
Your own work in that: 25 min.
- Browning the shells and vegetables 25 min
- Flambéing 5 min
- Simmering 45 min
- Sieving 25 min
- Finishing 15 min
Step by step
0 / 8 donePeel the prawns and keep everything
Peel the prawns, keeping the shells, heads and legs — the soup comes from them. Refrigerate the meat; it returns only at the very end, as a garnish on the plate.
Ingredients: 1000 g prawns · 60 g butter · 2 tbsp olive oil · 80 ml cognac
Brown the shells hard
Heat the butter with 1 tablespoon of the oil in a heavy pot and fry the shells 10 minutes over high heat, until deep orange and caramelising at the edges. The most important step — pale shells give a watery soup with no depth.
Ingredients: 1000 g prawns · 60 g butter · 2 tbsp olive oil · 80 ml cognac
Deep orange and caramelising — not pink.Crush the shells in the pot
Crush the shells with the end of a rolling pin or a pestle, right in the pot, into small pieces. Crushed, they give up far more flavour, exposing the interior and the fat trapped in the heads.
Ingredients: 1000 g prawns · 60 g butter · 2 tbsp olive oil · 80 ml cognac
Crushed shells give far more flavour.Flambé with cognac
Take the pot off the heat and add the cognac, measured beforehand into a cup — never pour straight from the bottle. Return to the heat and light it with a long match, keeping your face back; switch off the extractor hood and keep a lid to hand to smother the flames. Or simply boil the cognac off for 2 minutes over high heat. The cognac lifts the browned juices from the bottom and gives bisque its characteristic, faintly sweet depth.
Ingredients: 1000 g prawns · 60 g butter · 2 tbsp olive oil · 80 ml cognac
Add the vegetables and tomato paste
Add the chopped vegetables and garlic, fry 8 minutes, add the tomato paste and cook 2 minutes more until it darkens. The paste must be fried, not raw — raw it leaves a sour, metallic note in the soup.
Ingredients: 1 pcs onion · 2 pcs carrots · 2 pcs celery · ½ pcs fennel · 3 cloves garlic · 2 tbsp tomato paste · 250 ml white wine · 1500 ml water · 60 g rice · 3 pcs thyme · 2 pcs bay leaves · ¼ tsp cayenne pepper
Simmer with wine, water and rice
Pour in the wine, reduce by half, add the water, rice, thyme, bay and cayenne and simmer 40 minutes — about 45 in all with reducing the wine. The rice is the thickener — cooked to collapse and sieved, it gives velvet without flour or excess cream.
Ingredients: 1 pcs onion · 2 pcs carrots · 2 pcs celery · ½ pcs fennel · 3 cloves garlic · 2 tbsp tomato paste · 250 ml white wine · 1500 ml water · 60 g rice · 3 pcs thyme · 2 pcs bay leaves · ¼ tsp cayenne pepper
Blend and sieve twice
Remove the thyme and bay, blend everything including the shells — in batches in a jug blender, filled no more than halfway, holding the lid down with a tea towel — then force it through a fine sieve, pressing with a ladle — and repeat through a second, finer one. Two sievings are the difference between a good soup and a bisque.
Ingredients: 1 pcs onion · 2 pcs carrots · 2 pcs celery · ½ pcs fennel · 3 cloves garlic · 2 tbsp tomato paste · 250 ml white wine · 1500 ml water · 60 g rice · 3 pcs thyme · 2 pcs bay leaves · ¼ tsp cayenne pepper
Two sievings — the difference between soup and bisque.Finish with cream, butter and prawns
Reheat the soup, stir in the cream, then the cold butter piece by piece, and the lemon juice, then season with salt. Butter added off the boil gives shine and smoothness. Fry the peeled prawns in the remaining tablespoon of oil, a minute a side, and serve a few on each plate.
Ingredients: 200 ml whipping or double cream (30–36%) · 30 g butter · ½ pcs lemon · 2 tsp salt
Before you start
Shells from the freezer
Shells from prawns, langoustines and crab can be collected and frozen — a kilo accumulates over a few weeks. Bisque is then made from what would otherwise have been thrown away.
A sieve, not a blender
Even the best blender leaves shell fragments that read on the tongue as grit. A fine-mesh sieve, ideally a conical chinois, is unavoidable here — two passes is the minimum.
Three days in the fridge
Bisque without cream keeps three days and freezes excellently. Add cream and butter on reheating, over low heat — a dairy soup reheated hard easily separates.
