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Bisque of Lobster with Quenelles
Cut heads off two live lobsters of one and a half pounds each, then cut them in one-inch pieces, shells and all. Thoroughly heat on open fire one ounce butter, then add the lobster with a finely sliced carrot, onion and two branches celery, stir well, then cook for ten minutes, frequently stirring meanwhile. Pour two tablespoons each brandy and sherry in pan, set fire to liquors, gently stir with spatula until the flame dies out, place all contents of pan in mortar and pound to a paste. Return to saucepan, add a branch parsley, sprig thyme, bay leaf, clove and two ounces raw rice. Moisten with two and a half quarts water, one gill white wine and half a pint crushed fresh tomatoes. Season with two teaspoons salt, two saltspoons cayenne, mix well and gently boil one and a half hours, frequently mixing meanwhile. Press soup through sieve into a basin, then through Chinese strainer into a saucepan, pour in half gill cream, a quenelle garnishing and half an ounce butter, mix well, boil for two minutes, pour into a soup tureen and serve.
A classic shell-pounded bisque, thickened with rice rather than flour. Nothing here is difficult, but several of the measures and one piece of equipment need translating.
- The shells are the dishMuch of the flavour comes from pounding the cooked shells to a paste and simmering them, so do not be tempted to shell the lobster and discard the debris. Splitting the lobsters through the head with a heavy knife before cutting them into one-inch pieces is the usual modern method of despatching them.
- Gills and saltspoonsA gill is half a cup, so "one gill white wine" is 4 fl oz and "half gill cream" is 2 fl oz. A saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, making the cayenne half a teaspoon in total for two and a half quarts of liquid.
- Mortar or machineA large mortar and pestle is the traditional tool, but a sturdy food processor pulsed in batches does much of the same work in less time. The recipe asks for the contents to be pounded to a paste; the solids are strained out after the long simmer, first through a sieve and then through the cone.
- Chinese strainerThat is a chinois, the fine conical strainer. The two-stage straining is deliberate: a coarse sieve first to catch shell, then the fine cone to catch grit and rice solids. Press hard with a ladle rather than letting it drip.
- Rice, not rouxTwo ounces of raw rice is the whole thickener. It must break down completely over the ninety-minute simmer, so keep the pot at a genuine gentle boil and stir often, since rice and shell fragments will catch and scorch on the bottom.
- Flaming the liquorsTake the pan off the heat before adding brandy and sherry, then ignite. Two tablespoons of each will burn out in well under a minute, and the point is to cook off raw alcohol, not to reduce the pan dry.
- QuenellesThe "quenelle garnishing" is assumed knowledge in a book of this vintage: small poached dumplings of pounded fish or lobster bound with egg and cream, shaped between two spoons. They are poached separately in salted water and added at the end, as the two-minute final boil will not cook them through.
- YieldTwo and a half quarts of liquid reduces over the long simmer and loses more to the sieve; expect roughly six to eight servings as a first course. Add the cream and finishing butter only at the end, and do not let it boil hard afterwards.
Bisque began in French cookery as a thick, highly seasoned soup of pounded crustacean shells, and the rice-thickened, brandy-flamed version here is a restaurant formula of the kind that carried into English-language cookbooks in the early twentieth century. The name is generally traced to the Bay of Biscay, though the derivation is traditional rather than proven, and some writers connect it instead to bis cuit, twice-cooked, since the shells are first sautéed and then simmered again. What marks this as a professional recipe rather than a domestic one is the equipment it takes for granted: a mortar large enough to pound whole lobsters, a chinois, and a cook willing to spend two hours extracting flavour from shells.