Name: Three Chimneys Prawn and Lobster Bisque
Cuisine: British
Ingredients: 2 tbsp brandy; A few leaves from a bunch of celery; 2 large sprigs of flat parsley, with stalks, broken up; Half a lemon, sliced; You will need the heads, tail and claw shells of at least 2 cooked lobsters and 12 langoustines (I suggest you remove, eat and enjoy the meat from 1 of the lobsters, but save the shell, and remove the meat from the second lobster to add to the finished bisque, together with the meat from the langoustines, saving all the shells to make the stock.); 1 small, or half a bulb of fennel, finely chopped; Freshly ground sea salt and white pepper; 25 g long grain white rice; 4 level tbsp good quality, plain tomato passata; Juice of half a lemon; 1 stick of celery plus leaves, finely chopped; 2 small/medium carrots, finely chopped; 1 medium onion, finely chopped; 1 bulb fennel, roughly chopped, including the feathery tops; The white and pale green of 1 large leek, finely chopped; 150 ml fresh double cream; 1 large onion roughly sliced; 50 g unsalted butter; 1 litre lobster stock; 1 tbsp freshly chopped parsley; 0.5 litres dry white wine mixed with 1 litre cold water; The meat from a small cooked lobster and 12 cooked langoustines, chopped into small pieces; 50 g butter; 1 tsp whole white peppercorns; 2 bay leaves

Preparation info

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

The Three Chimneys

By Shirley Spear

Published 2010

About

It is only possible to make a good bisque if you have well-flavoured stock for the base. I am lucky to have plenty of spare shells left over from preparing lobsters and langoustines (known as prawns in Skye) in the restaurant. These are frozen until we have enough to make a large batch of stock. It is possible to buy lobster stock from specialist food outlets, such as a good delicatessen, but this may take some investigation for each reader locally. Below is my method.