Lobster bisque. This is soup for when you want to impress. Creamy. Rich. Luxurious. It’s everything wrong with French cooking. And it’s everything right with French cooking. Wonderful stuff indeed.
Lobster bisque is perfect for a really fancy dinner party
I love making soup when I entertain. Everybody loves a good soup. And it’s a first course you can make ahead. Like before lunch. Takes the pressure off the cook.
And lobster bisque is seriously fancy fare. This isn’t your run of the mill soup. It has lobster in it after all. I don’t know about you but I save lobster for when I want to impress. And this soup impresses.
This is a simpler lobster bisque
The traditional approach is a lot of work. Cook whole lobsters. Shell them. Flambe the shells. Make lobster stock. Then start making soup.
That’s the completely over the top way to do it. It’s amazing. The depth of flavour is almost surreal. But it’s a lot of prep.
And have you ever smelled lobster stock cooking? That’s something best done outside. You do not want your house stinking of lobster boil when your guests arrive.
Unless you have an industrial strength hood fan it’s not something I recommend.
This is a scaled back version. It’s not trivial as far as soup goes. But it is way easier. And you don’t stink up your house.
lobster bisque
Ingredients
- 4 Tbsp butter
- 1/2 cup shallots diced
- 1/4 cup carrots diced
- 3/4 cup white mushrooms diced
- 1/4 cup celery diced
- 2 Tbsp tomato paste
- 1 1/2 cups chicken stock
- 1 cup clam juice
- 12 oz can lobster meat juice reserved
- 1/4 cup white wine
- 1/4 cup sherry
- 1 1/2 cups whipping cream 35% milk fat
- 1/8 tsp cayenne
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Heat a sauce pan or pot large enough to hold all ingredients over medium low heat.
- Melt the butter. Add the shallots, carrots, mushrooms and celery. Cook until onion is translucent, about 10 minutes. Add tomato paste and cook a minute more.
- Add stock, clam juice and reserved lobster juice and simmer 10 minutes more.
- Separate the larger lobster pieces (claws) and set aside. You should have about 1/2 cup little bits left over.
- Puree the soup along with the 1/2 cup of little bits of lobster. Wipe the pot out. Return the pureed soup to the pot.
- Mix in white wine and sherry and simmer, loosely covered for about 30 minutes.
- Add cayenne. Simmer 5 minutes more.
- Add whipping cream and heat through.
- Adjust salt.
- Add large lobster pieces and serve.
- Garnish with a bit of paprika or piment d’esplette if you can get it.
Notes
There aren’t a lot of things in this world better on a cold winter day than French onion soup.
The richness from the caramelized onions. The melted then broiled cheese. The baguette croutons. It’s comfort in a bowl. Deeply satisfying. Wonderfully delicious. Amazing really, that something so good can be so simple.
French onion soup is about the onions
It seems obvious but it’s critical. Good French onion soup is real work. You need to cook the onions until they are deeply browned. Seriously. There’s no skimping that on that step.
It’s mostly about caramelization of the onions. All those sugars in the onions cooking down to a wonderful mess of delicious. But there’s a bit of Maillard reaction going on as well. Magic.
Gruyere is king
There is one cheese in my mind that is perfect for French onion soup. Gruyere. Other cheeses melt well but gruyere brings a little more depth of flavour.
It’s up to you. You can use whatever cheese you want. But try gruyere at least once. You will be surprised. Expensive but worth it.
