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Bisque D'erevisses — Bisque of Crayfish

A creamy crayfish bisque made with crayfish, head shells, fish cream forcemeat, salt, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Crayfish and fish work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 90 recipes. Both carry anethole, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Bisque D'erevisses — Bisque of Crayfish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crayfish

  1. Wash the crayfish in several waters.

  2. Cook the crayfish as explained for Bisque of Hard Crabs.

  3. Remove the meat from the tails for garnish or other use.

Stuff and cook the heads

  1. Clean the head shells and stuff them with fish cream forcemeat.

  2. Cook the stuffed heads in salted water before serving.

Finish the soup

  1. Finish the soup as you would Bisque of Lobster.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

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. Crayfish + fishtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together90 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  2. Crayfish + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together86 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Fish + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together937 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Crayfish
Provides the main shellfish flavour and the tender meat that gives the bisque its body.
Head shells
Hold the fish cream forcemeat and carry the shellfish flavour of the shells into the dish.
Fish cream forcemeat
Gives a soft, delicate texture to the stuffed heads as it sets when cooked.

The step that matters

Cook the stuffed heads in salted water. The forcemeat must be cooked through so it sets firmly, but overcooking makes it tough and rubbery. Salted water also seasons the filling as it cooks.

“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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