Recipe: Bisque d’Ecrevisses

Auguste Escoffier, a chef of acknowledged genius, published his Le Guide Culinaire in France toward the end of his career. To the end of his days, he mastered no more than a few words of English because, as he would jokingly explained, if he spoke the language, he might also end up cooking in the English fashion, “God forbid.”

Short of stature, he constantly wore high heels to enable him to see over the huge kitchen ranges. He seldom tasted a dish, relying almost entirely on his sense of smell.

He was a courtier of the kitchen, who knew how to flatter his guests, creating “poularde Tosca” and “Pêches Melba” for the famous diva Nellie Melba, as well as “zéphyr du poularde Belle Hélène” for Sarah Bernhard, a personal friend since the days when he was cooking at the fashionable Le Petit Moulin Rouge in Paris and she was an ingénue at the Comédie Française.

Looking through his recipes, I found the following Bisque d’ Ecrevisses, a dish that I recently enjoyed at a friend’s home in Florida. This friend is from Alsace, and she prepared it according to her mother’s recipe. It was the same as Escoffier’s with the exception of one ingredient – the addition of finely chopped fresh chives.

Ingredients:

2 pounds live crayfish
4 tablespoons butter
4 ounces. mirepoix (carrot, onion, one celery, and two parsley stalks) finely chopped
3 ounces rice
Sprig of thyme and a bay leaf
1/4 cup cognac
1/4 pint white wine
3 cups white consommé
1/8 teaspoon saffron
2 tablespoons heavy cream
Cayenne to taste
3/4 tablespoon finely chopped chives
Sea salt and ground black pepper to taste

Method:

Brown the mirepoix, thyme, and bay leaf in 2 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan. Add the crayfish, and toss in the mirepoix until they acquire a very red color.

Sprinkle with the cognac and white wine, season with a pinch of salt and a pinch of ground pepper, and set to reduce.

Moisten with 1/4 cup of white consommé, and cook for 10 minutes.

Also cook the rice in a half pint of the white consommé.

Drain the crayfish of the cooking-liquor, and reserve.

Shell the crayfish, and reserve ten to twelve tails aside.

Finely pound the remaining crayfish and the mirepoix, and strain any liquid through a fine sieve.

Take the rice and the balance of the crayfish tails, and pound in a mortar to a paste.

Add all liquids to the balance of the white consommé and the saffron, and bring to a quick boil.

Take it immediately off the fire, and add the rice/crayfish purée, constantly stirring with a whisk.

Keep the resulting preparation in a bain-marie, taking care to place a few lumps of butter on the surface, lest a skin should form while the bisque is waiting to be served.

Adjust the salt and pepper to taste.

Finish the preparation when serving by whisking the balance of the butter, the heavy cream, and a pinch of cayenne. Garnish with the crayfish tails and the finely chopped chives.