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Bisque, Harriman
Pound in a mortar a fresh lobster of three pounds, shells and all, to a pulp. Heat one ounce butter in a saucepan, add the lobster, stir well for one minute on the fire, let briskly cook for ten minutes, occasionally stirring meanwhile. Pour in two tablespoons brandy, set fire to the brandy, burn long as flame lasts, then add two gills of white wine and let boil for five minutes; add one pint fresh or canned crushed tomatoes and two quarts white broth or water. Season with one and a half teaspoons salt and two saltspoons cayenne pepper. Mix well for a minute and as soon as it comes to a boil add two ounces raw rice and mix lightly.
Heat in a frying pan a tablespoon butter, add half sliced carrot, half sliced onion, two sliced leeks, two branches celery and two branches parsley; gently cook for ten minutes, occasionally tossing, then add to the bisque, lightly mix and gently simmer for forty-five minutes, being very careful to mix at the bottom with a wooden spoon to prevent burning. Press the whole through a sieve, then through a Chinese strainer into another saucepan; add half pint cold milk, mix, and as soon as it comes to a boiling point pour into a soup tureen and serve.
A classic shell-based lobster bisque, thickened with rice rather than flour. Nothing here is unsafe, but several units and one piece of equipment need translating, and the straining is where the dish is won or lost.
- The hinge: two strainingsPress the solids through a coarse sieve first, then through the "Chinese strainer" — a chinois, the conical fine-mesh strainer. A fine sieve lined with muslin does the same job. Push firmly but stop short of forcing shell grit through; any sand-like texture in the finished soup came from this step.
- Gills and saltspoonsA gill is half a cup, so two gills of white wine is one cup. A saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, making two saltspoons of cayenne a half teaspoon — assertive but in period character for a bisque. Start with half that if serving a mixed table.
- A raw lobster, shells and all"Fresh" here means uncooked; the flavour comes from the shells browning in butter. A 3 lb lobster is now expensive for a soup, and two 1½ lb ones work identically. Pounding in a mortar can be done with a heavy pot and a mallet, or in short pulses in a food processor, but crack the claws and body first.
- White brothAn unbrowned stock — light veal or chicken, unsalted or barely salted. Water genuinely works, since the shells, mirepoix and tomato carry the soup, but a light stock gives more body.
- The rice is the thickenerTwo ounces is about a third of a cup of long-grain white rice. It must break down completely over the 45 minutes of simmering, so keep the heat low and scrape the base with a wooden spoon as instructed — scorched rice will taint the whole pot and cannot be strained out.
- Flaming the brandyTake the pan off the heat before lighting it, keep the exhaust fan off, and let the flame burn itself out rather than smothering it. Two tablespoons will burn for well under a minute.
- Finishing with milkThe half pint of cold milk goes in at the end and the soup is brought only to the boiling point, not held there — a dairy-finished bisque will catch and can break if left at a boil. Cream in place of milk is common in other versions and gives a rounder result.
- YieldRoughly two and a half quarts after straining, which is eight to ten servings as a first course. Reserving a little tail and claw meat from the lobster before pounding gives you a garnish the original does not mention.
The origin of "bisque" is unsettled: it is sometimes traced to the Bay of Biscay, and sometimes to bis cuit, twice-cooked, which would describe this method — the shellfish cooked once in butter and then again in liquid before being pressed through a sieve. Both explanations are traditional rather than demonstrated. Rice thickening is the older technique in bisques, generally predating the flour-and-butter roux that dominates twentieth-century American versions, and it produces a lighter body with no floury aftertaste. The second word in the title follows a convention of grand-hotel and Delmonico-era cookery, in which chefs christened dishes after prominent patrons; the practice fills books of this period with names — Harriman among them — that meant a great deal to a New York dining room of the 1900s and almost nothing to a cook a century later. What survives is the method, which is the same one a French kitchen would use today.