Saturday, September 21, 2013 – This is not so much a “cooking experiment” as much as it is practice for cooking class. This week in cooking class: soups and stocks. So I made a crab bisque.
I picked up a crab from Pike Place Market. Because I figure it’s better than Safeway crabs. Plus, Pike Place Market is awesome. (Note: A 2 lb crab yields about 5 oz of meat.)
I also learned cracking crabs by hand is potentially dangerous. (Or to put it differently, I fought against a dead crab and have the battle scars to prove it.)
Cast photo: The seafood stock, and the stuff I added to it to make it more awesome.
I simmered the seafood stock with the crab shells and the bay leaf for about 20 minutes. Because crab shells contain frequently over-looked flavor. (20 minutes later, it smelled like liquid awesome.) Don’t forget to strain out the shells when you’re done!
Cast photo: The ingredients for the actual soup. The recipe called for Old Bay Seasoning, but I couldn’t find any. So I grabbed an old spice mix I had, a recipe I borrowed from Emeril. (It’s paprika heavy.)
Not pictured: Making a roux. Last time I made a roux, I burned it. This time, I started at low heat and made sure I had enough liquid in the pan before putting in the flour. But since I had a half recipe, I had like 2 Tbsp butter and 2 Tbsp flour, so it was quickly burning up, so I kind a freaked out a little. And poured the stock into the stock pot as soon as the butter and flour came together.
Speaking of rouxs, the recipe says roux, stock, then cream. My friend Bram tells me it’s roux, cream, then stock. The difference is if I put the cream last, it’s used as a finishing ingredient. If I put the cream first, it can help fluff up the roux. Clearly I need to try it both ways.
The soup came out a little sour. Not sure if it’s the stock, the wine, or the lemon juice. Probably the lemon juice, since that’s a classically sour ingredient. (Prolly not the wine, since Madeira doesn’t go bad.) Other than that, amazing soup. A little extra pepper for a little extra flavor.