Name: Crab Bisque
Yield: Serves 8
Cuisine: United Kingdom
Ingredients: ½ cup Cognac; 5 cups good fish stock; 2 cups each onion, leek, celery, and carrot, all cut into small dice; A bouquet garni of bay leaf, thyme, parsley stems, and peppercorns; ⅔ cup long-grain rice; Salt and freshly ground pepper; ½ cup heavy cream; ½ cup tomato paste; 2-3 lb whole crabs, shell and claws broken into small pieces and “dead men’s fingers” removed; ½ cup dry white wine; ½ cup (1 stick) butter

Preparation info

Serves
8

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Two Fat Ladies Obsessions

By Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright

Published 1999

About

This is Richard Shepherd’s excellent crab soup from Langan’s restaurant in London.

Ingredients

2 cups each onion, leek, celery, and carrot, all cut into small dice
2-3 lb whole crabs, she

Method

Sweat the vegetables and crab pieces in the butter until the vegetables are tender. Add the bouquet garni, tomato paste, Cognac, wine, and stock. Stir and bring to a boil. Then add the rice and simmer for 45 minutes with the lid a little askew.

Strain off the liquid through a fine sieve and reserve. Discard the large, tough pieces of crab shell, then pulverize the remaining contents of