[Intro music]
Bisque!!! Mmm..
When you say the word bisque,
you will think about crustacean flavours.
Why cannot crustaceans, well, it could be prawns,
it could be made of lobsters,
it could be made of crayfish,
it could be made of crab and so on.
To make a beautiful prawn bisque,
you will need – prawn shells –
so here I have cleaned 2 pounds of large prawns,
fish stock, fresh parsley,
a small mirepoix of carrot, onion and celery - about 2 cups,
white wine, cognac or brandy,
sliced shallots, flour, tomato paste,
cream, bay leaves, olive oil, chopped garlic,
butter, salt and pepper, and
finally sandwiched bread for crouton.
Start the bisque.
Heat a large pot on medium heat.
Add the oil.
Add the onion, carrot and celery cut in small pieces.
Mix well.
Add the bay leaves,
the parsley. I’m going to cut the stock, everything.
The garlic. Mix well and cook the aromatic garnish
for about 5 minutes on medium heat without browning the food.
Meanwhile, slice the shallots.
So position your fingers very well
like we learnt in the past.
Great.
And add them to the pot.
Smells really good. Mmm. Great!
The vegetables have been sweating on medium heat
for about 5 minutes. Let’s add the prawn shells.
For your prawn shells, you want to make sure
to have some prawn heads
because if you look on the inside,
this is where all the flavour is;
they will bring out a strong aroma for the bisque.
Just prawns shelter the body without the heads
won’t bring the same flavour.
So it’s where the good stuff is.
Cook the prawn shells for few minutes,
until they all turn red.
So you will take may be 2 to 3 minutes.
So the prawns starts to colour,
then starts to turn red, beautiful,
and it’s got to be very fragrant. So now,
I’m going to crush a little bit of prawn heads.
Here we go. Mmm.
We are ready to flambé our
prawns' heads and shells with the cognac.
Cognac is 50 percent alcohol, so it’s highly flammable,
so do not flambé from the bottle
because if the flame goes inside,
the bottle will explode and
that will be very dangerous and bad news for your home.
So make sure to measure what you need
and you will flambé only that amount.
Okay. So there is no risk of implosion that way.
Are you ready?
So first of all you want to have your prawns very hot.
So, put the heat on high,
get ready with the flame,
let the heat be holding in up to the pot.
So I’m on high heat right now.
Because I really want to have lot of heat
and I’m going to pour the cognac everywhere
and I’m going to flambé.
So let flambé the alcohol.
Because the alcohol will burn off
but the aroma of the cognac or brandy
will remain into the pot.
Give it a stir.
Add the tomato paste.
Great. Mix well.
Turn down the heat to medium.
Add the wine and the fish stock.
Mix well and scrape the bottom of the pan
with the wooden spatula in order to release
the caramelized flavour from the bottom.
Turn the heat on high in order to bring
the bisque to a boil rapidly and
meanwhile let’s do our Beurre manié.
What is a Beurre manié?
A Beurre manié is an uncooked,
equal amount of butter and flour.
So it is the opposite of a roux which
is cooked equal amount of butter and flour.
Beurre manié is been used to thicken liquids,
soups usually, but it could be also used to thicken sauces and so on.
It is not my favourite thickening agent
because the flour is not cooked, it keeps its gluten taste.
To make the Beurre manié, just make sure
to have your butter at room temperature.
Thus it will be soft and add your flour
and work your ingredients together using a fork,
because it is easier to knead the ingredients together.
Mix well until both ingredients are well combined.
The soup is boiling hard.
Turn down the heat to medium
and let it simmer slowly for about 45 minutes.
The soup is simmering slowly that leave
us plenty of time to prepare our croutons.
You may cut the crust off, or leave it, it’s up to you.
Cut the slices into half centimeter sticks;
about quarter inches, and then into little cubes.
Great!
Heat a large pan on medium heat and melt the butter.
So that’s our 2 tablespoons of butter.
Our butter it’s almost melted. Here we go.
Add the croutons.
And you may sauté them or use a spatula.
Prepare a couple layers of paper towel;
láter on to absorb excess of fat from the croutons.
And stir and cook the croutons until golden brown.
If you are not comfortable to sauté the croutons,
you could always use a spatula.
But it’s fun to do.
In order to sauté, which is to jump food in the air,
you have to position your pan side down this way
or that way, and the food will slide down
and you just have to bring it back.
Watch. So you bring it.
That’s it.
The croutons are beautiful, they are golden brown.
Turn off the heat and season the crouton.
So use salt and place them on the absorbent paper.
The bisque has reduced
and has been cooking for about 45 minutes now.
Its time for us to add the Beurre manié.
Add the Beurre manié.
So you can notice that the consistency has changed already.
Let the soup cook for another 10 – 15 minutes
and then we will serve it.
We haven’t tasted the soup yet. So let’s do that
and then we are going to season it.
Mmm very tasty!
Let’s put some freshly ground peppercorn and some salt.
The amount of salt won’t be much
because the prawn shells are salted already,
so there is salt in the soup already.
Salt, mix well.
Great. Very nice!
Let’s bring the soup and later on, we will adjust the seasoning
when we put the cream.
Our bisque is ready to be strained.
So let’s use a Chinese cap also known as conical strainer.
If you don’t have that at home,
you may use a sieve and press down hard
in order to extract all the juices
or use a vegetable mill.
And press.
So press hard in order to remove and extract all the juices.
I’m going to show you also that how to pass a soup
or bisque using a vegetable mill too.
Great. Thats enough for now.
So this is hard; pass it through.
Add the rest and strain.
Mmm. That’s really crushing them.
It’s really good to extract all the flavours.
Ah! Great!
Good! Pick up the juices here. Very nice!
Then return the bisque to the heat.
Add the cream.
So bring the soup to boil.
Taste.
Its very tasty. Beautiful.
I was going to say, taste and rectify the
seasoning with salt and pepper.
Here the soup is perfect, so I won’t do that.
I will leave it as it is because it’s awesome.
Just bring it to boil and serve it.
Our bisque is boiling.
Let’s turn it off and let’s plate it.
Skim any foam on top of the bisque if any,
just before serving
and serve the bisque.
Mmm. Great!
I’m going to put the cream first.
So this a mixture of sour cream and a little bit of the milk.
Great.
Mix with the spoon knife.
Add a few croutons in the centre and serve.
Beautiful prawn bisque. Bon appétit.