Crayfish Soup

Ingredients

• two dozen of them
• butter
• the original broth in which the crayfish were boiled
• white of egg

Method

1. 1

   Pound the carapaces of the crayfish in butter until a pulp.

2. 2

   Fry this pulp until the butter is colored red, then add the broth.

3. 3

   Boil and skim off the colored butter.

4. 4

   Strain the soup and allow it to stand until clear.

5. 5

   Clarify with egg white if desired, and restore the red butter before serving with sliced tail-meat and fried bread.

As published

This recipe was extracted from The spirit of cookery (1895) by Johann Ludwig Wilhelm Thudichum, page 125. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

the original broth in which the crayfish were boiled is added. Some boil the crayfish in mere salt water, and throw this away, and liquefy the roasted crayfish butter with new stock. They now boil, and remove the coloured butter with a spoon during boiling, in order not to lose any in the carapace debris during strain- ing.* The soup, after passing the tammy, may be allowed to stand until it is clear and cold ; the butter may be skimmed ofi", and the liquid decanted from the deposit. If the latter be now clarified with white of egg, clear bisque will result, and may be served, with the red butter restored to it, with the sliced tail-meat and fried bread immersed. It is the analogue of clear turtle, and a great deal more tasty than that, whereas the form above given, and to which we attri- bute the better quality, corresponds to thick turtle. How- ever, crayfish soup differs from turtle and most other technically accomplished soups in this, that whether it be clear or thick, it always contains the red or orange coloured crayfish butter, in which the greater part of its characteristic flavour is concentrated. To bind and emulge this butter by suspension in a starchy medium may be suitable in the case of the thick bisque, but for the clear the binding material, whether rice or fried bread, would have to be omitted. Compound Bisque is a bisque as above described, augmented by additions, particularly when the number of crayfish is by itself insufficient to afford material for the necessary volume. Mussels and quenelles of whiting blend very well with the crayfish tails. For potage h la bisque several recipesf exist, all of which begin with the production of a coulis d’dcrevisses, produced like the extract for the bisque, and subsequently expanded. Tails, as well as shells and claws, are to be pounded ; to * This has evidently been misunderstood by a writer who prescribes the coloured butter to be left out altogether. t Potaf/e a la hinque, recipe ol Durand; D.D., 854. Coulis d'6cre- visses, cf. La Chapelle, loc. cit., vol. i., p. io2. Three recipes. iS8 THE SPIRIT OF COOKERY the purde of tails white pur6e of fowl is to be added. This combination is useful when a limited number of cray- fish has to yield a disproportionately large volume of soup. Observe that the correct name is potage b, la bisque — i.e., a bisque-like soup. The coxdis d’dcrevisses serves for the pre- paration of soups not only, but of all kinds of entries, which are then termed au cotolis d’dcrevisses. Grab Soup, Bisque b la Normande, or Potage au. Pouparts, is a paraphrase of bisque. The crabs to be employed in the production of this soup are those which bear the name of pouparts on the coast of Normandy. Two dozen of them

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.