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Soup

Bisque of Crayfish

A creamy soup made from boiled crab, rice, consommé, cream, celery, carrot, butter, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Bisque of Crayfish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the puree

  1. Pick the white meat from the crab claws and set aside.

  2. Scoop out the pulpy part of the crab and pound it with the boiled rice.

  3. Dilute the mixture with the consommé and rub it through a fine sieve into a puree.

Make the soup

  1. Heat the puree gently in a soup pot, stirring with a wooden spoon to avoid curdling.

  2. Mix in the boiling cream and cayenne pepper to taste.

Serve

  1. Pour the soup into a tureen containing the warmed shredded crab meat.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Rice + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,477 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Rice + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,169 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

Boiled crab
Provides the main shellfish flavour and meat for the finished soup.
Boiled rice
Is pounded into the puree to thicken it and give it body.
Consommé
Forms the liquid base that thins the crab puree into a soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded texture to the soup.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a mellow flavour.

The step that matters

Heat the puree gently, stirring constantly. Dairy proteins can curdle and the puree can scorch when it gets too hot. Gentle heat and steady stirring keep the soup smooth once the cream goes in.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, rice, cream, pepper, butter, celery):

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, rice, cream, pepper, butter, celery. 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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