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Bisque of Lobster Aux Croutons
Cut the head off from a three-pound live lobster, then cut in pieces. Thoroughly heat an ounce melted butter in a saucepan, add the lobster and briskly cook on the range for ten minutes, occasionally stirring meanwhile. Place it in a mortar and pound to a paste, then return it to the same saucepan, add one each finely minced carrot, onion and leek, two finely minced small branches celery and two branches parsley; pour in three tablespoons brandy and set it on fire, let burn as long as it lasts, continually stirring while burning. Add a half gill white wine, one quart broth, a pint of tomatoes, either fresh or canned, and three pints water. Season with a tablespoon salt and half teaspoon paprika. Mix well, and as soon as it comes to a boil add three ounces rice and let slowly simmer for one hour and fifteen minutes. Strain through a sieve into a basin, return to the pan, add one gill cream and half ounce good butter and mix on the fire until coming to a boil; then pass through a strainer into a soup tureen and serve with a plate of bread croutons separately.
A classic shell-based bisque: the flavour comes from pounded lobster shell, not just the meat, and everything is strained out at the end. A few of the measures and vessels need translating.
- GillA gill is half a cup, so the white wine is 1/4 cup and the finishing cream is 1/2 cup. The half ounce of butter is one tablespoon.
- The hinge: pound, then strain twiceThe shells are the point of the dish, and the recipe strains the soup through a sieve and again through a strainer for good reason. Pounding in a mortar breaks the shell into fragments that release flavour; if you use a food processor instead, pulse rather than puree, then pass everything through a fine sieve and finally a chinois or muslin so no shell grit reaches the tureen.
- BranchesA "branch" of celery is one rib, and a branch of parsley is a sprig or small stem. The recipe minces the celery; the parsley branches go in as they are. Both are strained out.
- Rice as thickenerThree ounces is a scant half cup of raw white rice. It disintegrates over the long simmer and gives the body; do not substitute parboiled or long-cooking brown rice, which will still be intact at the end.
- SaltA full tablespoon into roughly six pints of liquid is a lot, particularly if the broth is commercial rather than homemade. Add a teaspoon at the start and correct after straining, once the volume has reduced.
- Flaming the brandyTake the pan off the heat before adding the brandy, then return it to light it, and keep a lid within reach. "Let burn as long as it lasts" means until the flame dies on its own, which is usually under a minute.
- Timing and reductionAn hour and fifteen minutes at a bare simmer will reduce the liquid noticeably; that is intended. Keep it low enough that the surface barely moves, or you will lose too much before the rice has broken down.
- YieldMakes about eight servings as a first course. Cut the finished bisque with a little hot broth if it has thickened past pouring consistency.
Bisque came to describe a thick shellfish soup thickened with pounded shells and rice or bread rather than flour, and the name is generally traced to the Bay of Biscay, though that connection is traditional rather than documented. What marks this as a recipe in the professional French manner is the method: the whole lobster is cooked, pounded and then discarded, so that a three-pound lobster yields nothing but flavour, and the diner receives a smooth soup with croutons served separately on a plate. Cookbooks aimed at American households presented such restaurant preparations for home cooks, and the casual instruction to reach for a mortar is a reminder of a time when the mortar did the work a blender or food mill does now.