Crayfish
There are two kinds so called: one huge, belonging to the sea; the other small, belonging to rivers. The former, sometimes also called crawfish, and in French langouste, are larger and coarser than lobsters; they are not prized in England; but the French seem to cherish them and to prefer them, even to lobsters, though they lack the large claws which glorify the last. No one ever Crayfish There sees a salt-water crayfish at a first-class London table; but in Paris enter a shop like Chevet's or a restaurant like Bignon's, and the horrible monster will be seen in the windows of the one or on the tables of the other, offered among the most tempting delicacies of the season. is much more to be said for the French love of the river crayfish, which it would be much more accurate to call the river lobster. The crayfish of English rivers are not very abundant, and being rather small, are more for ornament than food. The best crayfish in London come in a curious roundabout way from Berlin. They are not to be found in London shops and one has to send to Paris express for a hamper of two or three hundred, which will be delivered all alive. The French rivers are not equal to the demands of the Paris market. The German rivers are therefore laid under contribution, and 10,000 at a time are sent from Berlin. An immense number of the smaller crayfish are used in Paris for the mere decoration of dishes; but apart from this use of them the crayfish are chiefly consumed in two ways. They are eaten bodily with a rich sauce which is described under the name of Bordeaux, the dish being known as Ecrevisses à la Bordelaise; and they are worked into a soup which is commonly called Bisque (see that word), and which shall here be called more simply- Crayfish Soup. - Heat up to boiling point a plentiful Mirepoix of white wine, and cook two dozen crayfish in it for from twenty to twenty-five minutes, tossing them from time to time. When they are perfectly red take them off the fire and let them cool. Then shell them, all but the claws. The shells and the claws go into the mortar to make crayfish butter; the flesh of the tails is reserved to be put into the soup at the last; the body part goes back into the Mirepoix, to which two quarts of water (or broth) may now be added, together with four ounces of blanched rice. In the meantime it is necessary to prepare the cray- Cream fish butter. Remove the black eyes, and pound shells and claws in a mortar with about an ounce of butter. When thoroughly pounded they are to be added to the Mirepoix, and all is to be simmered for an hour and a half, after which it is to be passed through a sieve, heated up, and finished with a piece of butter. Add now the crayfish tails nicely trimmed and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Add also, it may be, quenelles of whiting prepared with some of the crayfish butter.
The entry is half market report, half recipe; the cooking begins at "Crayfish Soup." Two things need attention before anything else: the cooking time for the live crayfish, and what Kettner means by mirepoix.
- The cooking time is the hingeTwenty to twenty-five minutes will reduce crayfish tails to cotton wool. Live crayfish dropped into boiling liquid are done in three to five minutes, as soon as they turn scarlet and the tails curl. Lift them out then, and let the shells and heads take over the long simmering, which is where the flavour of a bisque actually comes from.
- Mirepoix, 1877 senseHere it is a wet braising bath, not the modern dry dice: diced carrot, onion and celery with a piece of fat bacon or ham, bay, thyme and parsley, moistened generously with white wine. "Plentiful" means enough liquid to cook two dozen crayfish in; the book gives no measure, so use enough wine to make a bath with the vegetables, adding water to cover if needed.
- Quantities and yieldTwo dozen crayfish, two quarts of water or broth, four ounces of rice. Two dozen small European crayfish yield very little tail meat; if you are using farmed signal or Louisiana crayfish, count on 2-2.5 lb whole. As written the soup serves six to eight as a first course.
- Rice is the thickener"Blanched rice" means rice boiled a minute or two and drained to remove surface starch and any raw taste; it then cooks down in the soup and is pushed through the sieve to body it. Any short-grain white rice works. There is no roux and no cream in Kettner's version, though a little cream at the end is entirely in period.
- Crayfish butterRemoving the black eyes is not fussiness — they are gritty and slightly bitter. Also pull out the dark intestinal thread from the tails. A food processor does the pounding faster than a mortar; work the shells with the butter to a coarse paste, then strain the finished soup through a fine sieve or chinois, pressing hard, and again through muslin if you want it clean.
- Cayenne, and the finishThe pinch of cayenne is structural rather than decorative; it lifts the sweetness of the shellfish. Add the reserved tails only at the very end, off the boil, to warm through.
- Quenelles of whitingOptional, and a full second recipe: whiting flesh pounded with crayfish butter, bound with egg white and panade, poached in small spoonfuls. Skip them and the soup is complete.
- Langouste is not a crayfishThe "huge" sea crayfish of the first paragraph is the spiny lobster or rock lobster, sold as langosta, langouste or crayfish depending on the country. It has no large claws, and it is not the animal this soup calls for.
- Sourcing todayBritain's native white-clawed crayfish is protected and may not be taken; the crayfish on sale are farmed or trapped signal crayfish, or imported Louisiana ones. Both are entirely suitable, and the frozen whole cooked ones can be used for the butter if live are unavailable.
Bisque is generally traced to the Bay of Biscay, though the derivation is traditional rather than proven, and in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the word covered rich pounded soups of pigeon or quail as readily as shellfish; by Kettner's day it had narrowed to crayfish and lobster. The market gossip in this entry is the most interesting part of it: London had no crayfish trade to speak of, so the best specimens reached English tables by way of Paris, which in turn drew on the rivers of Brandenburg because French waters could not keep up with demand. That German traffic was enormous and short-lived. The crayfish plague, a water mould first recorded in Italy in 1859 and spreading through France in the 1870s, did not reach German waters until about 1878-1880, after which it moved through the continental populations of the native Astacus astacus and effectively ended the era when ten thousand live crayfish could be crated out of Berlin at a time. Kettner's Book of the Table, written for a London restaurant public in 1877, was thus recording a supply chain on the eve of its collapse.