Lobster bisque is a rich and decadent creamy soup and one Monday morning when both GH and I were free I decided to have a go at making this for lunch. This is one that requires a lot of love and some lobster butchery to go along with it but all lobster carvery woes will melt away when you have a first sip of the soup. I had a couple of cooked lobsters stored in the freezer from Lidl so I defrosted them and popped them into boiling water for five minutes to heat them up and make a simple base for the stock. I looked through a few recipes online and found this one from the bbcgoodfood website which had lots of good flavour in it. This is my modified version and we both loved its delicious velvety smoothness.
Lobster Bisque
Serves 4
2 lobsters
Boiling water enough to cover the lobsters
1 tbsp salt
15g (or small bunch) of parsley
400ml white wine (chardonnay is perfect)
1/2 chicken stock cube
2 chopped shallots
4 cloves chopped garlic
1 chopped carrot
2 chopped celery sticks
75g butter
2 bay leaves
2 sprigs of thyme
1 tbsp tomato puree
80ml dry sherry
150ml single cream
Juice from 1/2 lemon
- Boil water with salt, add in lobsters and boil for 5 minutes. Remove lobsters and let cool. Reserve the cooking liquid which will now be your stock.
- To get the meat out of the lobsters turn them onto their back and use a sharp heavy knife to cut them into half lengthways all the way. The green bits inside are called the tomally and I removed them but a Jamie Oliver video on youtube mentioned keeping them in, so leaving them in might give more flavour to the stock. One of my lobsters even had roe in it and I put that into my stock as well. The meat from the tail is quite easy to peel away. Then use the back of your knife and give a few heavy taps on the claw to allow you to crack it easily in half crossways and the claw meat should come away quite easily as well. Refrigerate the tail and claw meat. Chop the lobster shells up into 2 inch chunks.
- Heat 25g of the butter in a soup pot. Fry the lobster shells at medium high heat for 5 to 10 mins until the smell is maximised. Add in the white wine, parsley, chicken stock and lobster stock and simmer for 45 minutes. Once it is ready, drain the stock and leave aside.
- Chop up the shallots, garlic, carrot and celery sticks in a food processor. Melt the rest of the butter in a soup pot and sauté the vegetables, bay leaves and thyme until they’re soft. Add in the tomato puree and stir to give the vegetables a good coating. Add in the stock and sherry and simmer gently for another 45 minutes.
- Remove the bay leaves and thyme twigs. Blend the soup until it is smooth, add the cream and return to the hob to reheat. Add in half of the lemon juice.
- Melt some butter and oil in a pan and fry the lobster meat for a couple of minutes to warm up. Top with some of the lemon juice left.
- Scoop the rich broth into individual bowls and top with the meat. To make it easier to eat, you can chop up the meat into bite-sized chunks.
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