Lobster Bisque
Phyllis's recreation of Fiskehuset's iconic lobster bisque.
Servings 8
Ingredients
- 5 kg lobsters, shells only see the note below
- 2 onions chopped
- 3 carrots chopped
- 2 celery sticks chopped
- 4 garlic cloves
- 2 tbsp tomato purée
- 200 ml dry white wine
- 1 litre water
- 1 litre fish stock
- 2 bay leaves
- Butter or olive oil
- 500 ml single cream
- 1 red pepper
- 2 syboes
Instructions
- Break the shells up a bit with a rolling pin or heavy spoon.
- Fry the shells in a little butter for about 10 minutes until they smell wonderfully nutty.
- Add the vegetables and cook another 10 minutes.
- Stir in the tomato purée and cook for a minute.
- Add the wine and let it bubble for 2–3 minutes.
- Pour in the water or stock, add the herbs and peppercorns.
- Simmer gently for 60 minutes (don’t boil hard).
- Strain it.
- Pour everything through a fine sieve, pressing firmly on the vegetables and shells to squeeze out all the flavour.
- Simmer another half hour to reduce and add corn starch to thicken a little.
- Return the liquid to the pan.
- Add the cream, and add salt, pepper, cayenne and/or paprika according to taste.
- If you have a stick blender, blend the cooked vegetables before straining (don’t blend the shells). The vegetables thicken the soup naturally and give it that velvety, restaurant-style texture. Then strain through a fine sieve.
- Fry the red pepper and the syboes and throw them soup, and chop the remaining lobster into stock just after you’ve heated it.
Notes
When you have cooked lobsters, keep:
- all the tail shells
- claw shells
- knuckle shells
- heads/body shells (remove the gills/“dead man’s fingers” and discard them).