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Crawfish Bisque

A creamy soup made with crawfish tails, vegetables, and spices, served over rice.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Crawfish Bisque

Time1 hour

Ingredients

Directions

Make the roux and base

  1. Heat the oil in a large, heavy pan.

  2. Add the flour and cook, stirring, to make a medium brown roux (the color of peanut butter).

  3. Add the onion, garlic, celery and the white parts of the scallions and cook until softened, stirring occasionally.

  4. Gradually stir in the water, then add the tomato paste, thyme, bay leaf, 4 tablespoons of the parsley, allspice berries, cloves, salt, peppers, cayenne to taste and the lemon juice.

  5. Bring to a boil, stirring well.

Simmer with the crawfish

  1. Chop about one-quarter of the crawfish tails and add with the fat, if available.

  2. Cover and simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

  3. Add the remaining whole crawfish tails and simmer, covered for 15 minutes or longer.

  4. Stir in the green parts of the scallions and the remaining parsley.

Serve

  1. Serve hot over rice.

  2. NOTE: If available, add 12 or more stuffed crawfish heads (thawed if frozen) 5 minutes before serving.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

902Calories
27 gProtein
8 gFat
185 gCarbs

Counts 17 of 19 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 17 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Rice1 cup cooked (158g) white206
Corn Oil1/2 cup kernels (82g)77
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Bacon1 slice cooked (8g)43
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Chili1 tsp (2.7g)8
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Celery1 stalk (40g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Allspice1 tsp ground (1.9g)5
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Thyme1 tsp dried (1.4g)4
Bay Leaf1 leaf (0.6g)2
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Crayfishnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corn oil or bacon fat
Carries the heat and fat for the roux and adds savory flavor.
All-purpose flour
Browns with the fat to form a roux that thickens the bisque.
Crayfish tails
Provide the main seafood flavor and tender meat in the bisque.
Tomato paste
Adds concentrated acidity, color and savory depth to the broth.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, building the base flavor.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich roux and seafood flavors.

The step that matters

Cooking the roux to medium brown. Flour and fat must cook slowly and stir constantly; too little heat leaves a pasty, raw-flour taste, while too much darkens and scorches it, which ruins the flavor and thickening power.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, flour, onion, garlic, celery, tomato, thyme):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Oreganofits better
  3. Basilfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, flour, onion, garlic, celery, tomato, thyme. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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