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Bisque of Shrimp
Procure four dozen fresh shrimp; wash in several changes of fresh water and drain well. Pound in a clean mortar to a paste, remove, place on a plate and keep till required.
Have in a saucepan half medium, sliced carrot, half ditto white onion, two branches parsley, two branches chopped celery, two sliced leaks and one ounce butter. Gently cook the vegetables for fifteen minutes, frequently stirring meanwhile. Then add the shrimp; stir well for a minute, then let cook for ten minutes more, lightly mixing with a wooden spoon occasionally. Add two ounces flour, thoroughly mix for two minutes; moisten with a quart hot milk and one quart white broth. Season with one and a half teaspoons salt, two saltspoons cayenne pepper and one saltspoon grated nutmeg. Mix well until it comes to a boil, let boil for fifteen minutes, then add one egg yolk diluted in half gill cream; mix well for two minutes without boiling. Pass through a sieve first, then through a cheesecloth into a hot soup tureen, and serve very hot with a plate of bread croutons separately.
A classic French shellfish bisque built the old way: the whole shrimp, shells and all, pounded to a paste and cooked into the soup, then strained out. The straining is not optional tidiness — it is what makes the dish edible.
- Strain twice, and mean itPounded shells leave fine splinters that a single pass will not catch. Push the soup through a fine sieve, then through damp cheesecloth or a jelly bag; anything gritty on the tongue means it needs another pass.
- The egg liaison must not boilOnce the yolk and cream go in, keep the pot below a simmer. Two minutes of gentle stirring off strong heat is enough; a boil will curdle the yolk into threads and no amount of sieving fixes the texture.
- "Four dozen shrimp"Size is not given. Reckon on roughly 1½ to 2 lb of whole shrimp, heads and shells on — the shells carry most of the flavour and colour here.
- Mortar or machineA food processor will do in seconds what the mortar did by hand. Pulse the raw shrimp with shells to a coarse paste rather than a purée; it still has to cook in the butter and vegetables.
- Archaic measuresA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so this asks for about ½ teaspoon cayenne — assertive but not unreasonable for two quarts of liquid. A gill is half a cup, making half a gill ¼ cup of cream. Two ounces of flour is a scant half cup.
- Leaks and white broth"Leaks" is leeks; use the white and pale green only. "White broth" means an unbrowned veal or chicken stock — a light unsalted chicken stock is the modern stand-in, and you can reduce the added salt accordingly if it is already seasoned.
- TimingFifteen minutes at a boil after the milk goes in is what cooks out the raw flour. It sounds long for shellfish, but the shrimp are being treated as a flavouring to be discarded, not as pieces to be served.
- YieldTwo quarts of liquid go in, rather less comes out after the double straining — eight to ten servings as a first course. Croûtons on the side, as directed, rather than floating.
Bisque in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries could mean a rich stew of pigeons or quails; the shellfish meaning hardened later, and the classical French repertoire settled it on crayfish, lobster, crab and shrimp, thickened with pounded shells and often rice. The name is generally traced either to the Bay of Biscay or to bis cuit, "twice cooked," though neither derivation is documented with any confidence. What is certain is the method on display here: the shell is the ingredient, ground fine, cooked in fat and stock to give up its colour and its iodine sweetness, then removed entirely. Alexander Filippini, long of Delmonico's in New York, compiled The International Cook Book in 1906.