No. 211

Bisque of Shrimps a la Veragua

Bisque de Crevettes a la Veragua

Cut into small three-sixteenth of an inch squares, two ounces of carrots, four ounces of onions and two ounces of celery root; put into a saucepan six ounces of butter, fry therein the vegetables without browning and add three pounds of fresh, well washed shrimps, one bay leaf and several sprigs of parsley, also a bottleful of white wine and half a pound of chopped mushrooms. Boil for ten minutes, drain, remove the parsley and bay leaf, then shell a quarter of the shrimps, suppressing the tails, which must be laid aside for the garnishing, pound the rest of the shrimps with the shells of those the tails were taken from, add one-fourth of the same quantity of rice and moisten with the stock and broth; strain this puree through a sieve or tammy, add one pint of bechamel, season with salt and cayenne pepper; warm without boiling, and just when ready to serve, add to it a piece of fine butter and some cream. Serve the soup very hot, with Savarin crusts, five-eighths by one-eighth of an inch thick, and dried in the oven, also the shrimp tails cut into small squares.

← No. 210 Bisque or Puree of Oysters a la Wilson Soups & Broths No. 212 Bisque of Shrimps a la Melville →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a brigade, a mortar and a tammy cloth; the dish translates well to a blender and a fine chinois. The hinge is the final warming: once the béchamel, butter and cream are in, the soup must not boil.

The finish never boilsAfter the purée is strained and the béchamel added, hold it below a simmer. Boiling a butter-and-cream-enriched bisque breaks the emulsion and dulls the shellfish flavour, and reheating it later has the same effect. Enrich at the last moment and serve.
Pounding the shellsThe mortar work is what makes this a bisque rather than a shrimp soup. A food processor, then a blender with a ladle of the hot stock, gets you further than a mortar will; pass the result through a fine sieve or chinois, pressing hard, and discard the shell grit.
Rice as the thickener"One-fourth of the same quantity of rice" most plausibly means rice equal to a quarter of the weight of the shrimp being pounded, which would be roughly 9 oz for the 2 1/4 lb going into the puree; the phrasing is ambiguous. Cook it soft in the liquid before blending, or the bisque will be gritty.
"Moisten with the stock and broth"The stock is the strained wine-and-vegetable cooking liquid; the broth is left unspecified, so use a light savoury broth of your choosing. No quantity is given. Figure on 2 to 3 quarts of combined liquid for a soup of this size, added gradually until the strained puree coats a spoon.
A bottleful of white wineTake this as roughly a standard modern bottle, about 750 ml; the original gives no volume and period bottles varied. Use something dry and unoaked; the ten-minute boil concentrates it, and a sweet or heavily wooded wine will dominate the shellfish.
Ten minutes on the shrimpShell-on shrimp in wine for ten minutes is aimed at extracting flavour, not at the texture of the meat. The tails you reserve for garnish will already be firm at two to three minutes, so lift those out early and let the rest continue.
Béchamel and butterOne pint of béchamel is a substantial addition; make it thin (about 1 oz each butter and flour to a pint of milk) so it loosens into the bisque rather than pasting it. The "piece of fine butter" at the end is a knob of cold butter swirled in off the heat.
Savarin crustsSavarin is the rich yeast-raised ring dough; the crusts are thin slices of that or of brioche, cut about 5/8 in. by 1/8 in. and dried in a low oven until crisp -- no temperature is given in the original. Plain brioche or challah toast is the closest supermarket substitute.
YieldWith three pounds of shrimp and a bottle of wine, this should come to something like 3 quarts, enough for eight to ten as a first course; the recipe gives no yield or serving count.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its recipe titles read as a guest list: dishes were named for the diners and dignitaries in the room. The Duke of Veragua honoured here was the direct descendant of Columbus who came to the United States for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and was fêted in New York, which fits the pattern of Ranhofer's commemorative naming, though the book itself does not explain the dedication. The dish is a classical bisque in the older sense of the word: French kitchens of the period built these soups on pounded shells thickened with rice, not on the flour-and-tomato base later associated with the name, and the labour of pounding and passing through a tammy was precisely the sort of thing a restaurant brigade could do and a home cook could not. Shrimp on a Delmonico's menu in 1894 were a local luxury; the finishing butter and cream, added off the fire, were the standard mark of a soup served to people paying for it.