Crawfish Bisque

I tried this one for a special Valentine’s Day dinner. It’s sort of a hybrid adaptation of a tasty-looking recipe from allrecipes.com and my all-time favorite lobster bisque from Red Lobster— the recipe of which I cannot directly link to, but you can find it and all their other ‘secret’ recipes here.

Now, crawfish is certainly cheaper and easier to use than lobster (and ends up being a lot more meat per bite) but it was distinctly less tasty overall than lobster. In general, lobster is stronger-flavored and leaks more flavor into it’s surroundings, so to speak. However, the crawfish version tasted quite a bit better the second day after the crawfish had sat in the soup overnight.

[Prep: 10 min / Cook: 35 min]

– 2 cups water
– 3/4 cup dry white wine
– 1 cup chicken or fish stock
– about 1 cup (300g) crawfish tails
– 1 onion
– 2 celery stalks
– 2 cloves garlic
– 1/4 cup butter
– shot of brandy or cognac
– 1 cup of tomato sauce or puree
– 1.5 cups of milk
– dash each of paprika, thyme and ground black pepper

1. Combine water, white wine and stock in a large stock pot. Add crawfish and bring to a boil.
2. Meanwhile, finely chop the onion, celery and garlic (or use the blender method from last week’s tomato soup and add directly to the pot).
3. Melt butter in a large, deep skillet, add chopped vegetables and sauté for a couple minutes.
4. Throw in the shot of brandy and the flour. Stir until blended.
5. Turn off skillet and carefully pour into the pot with the crawfish mixture. Return to a boil, turn down heat and let simmer for about 10 minutes.
6. Stir in tomato sauce, milk and spices. Turn up heat and bring back to a boil for a couple minutes.
7. Ready to eat!

[Serves 2]

Adapted from Special Lobster Bisque and Red Lobster’s Lobster Bisque

• These have been some alcohol-intensive soups for some reason … anyway, you need not use the brandy, but Red Lobster says it adds a good punch of flavor. But as I learned last week, whiskey or even rum could be an interesting substitute.
• If you can, definitely try it with fish stock rather than chicken to get a better seafood flavor.
• You can swap out some of the milk for varying degrees of whole cream for a change in creaminess.
• And, as always, feel free to use garlic powder, onion powder and celery salt as substitues for less chopping and a less-lumpy soup.