Home › The World's Kitchen › Bisque of Crawfish

Bisque of Crawfish

Thoroughly wash thirty small live crawfish in cold water. Remove tails from eighteen of them, plunge in boiling water with a little vinegar and salt and boil ten minutes, drain, remove shells and keep tails on a plate until required. Thoroughly pound the thirty crawfish in mortar to a fine pulp. Heat one ounce butter in a large saucepan, add the crawfish, as well as a finely sliced carrot and one finely sliced onion, then briskly cook ten minutes, frequently stirring meanwhile; then add one pint fresh crushed tomatoes, two quarts broth, one-quarter pint white wine, two branches parsley, one branch chervil, one bay leaf, one clove and three ounces raw rice; season with a good teaspoon salt and two saltspoons cayenne pepper and let gently boil one hour, occasionally mixing meanwhile. Remove, pass the bisque through sieve into a basin, then through a fine Chinese strainer into a clean saucepan, set pan on fire, and as soon as it comes to a boil add one gill cream, a half ounce good butter, juice of a quarter of lemon and the crawfish tails. Continually mix with wooden spoon until it comes to a boil. Pour the bisque into a soup tureen and serve.