Lobster Bisque

Lobster bisque is a festive speciality of French cooking: a velvety, deeply seafood-flavoured, pinkish cream soup.

1. Cook the lobster (600 g) in boiling salted water in 8-10 minutes, cool it, and pick out its meat.

2. Do not throw away the shells – with these you cook the stock on, this is where the bisque's true depth comes from. Set aside the cooking water with the shells.

3. In a pot, in the butter (60 g), fry the finely chopped onion (1), the carrot (100 g) and the celery stalk (1 stick).

4. Add the tomato purée (2 tablespoons) and the flour (2 tablespoons wheat flour), and fry it, stirring, for 2 minutes.

5. Pour in the shell stock, simmer it gently for 25 minutes, then strain it through a sieve.

6. Stir in the cream (300 ml) and the diced lobster meat, and heat it through (but do not boil it now). Finish with a pinch of cayenne pepper and chopped parsley, and season with salt.

Tip: Cooking the shell is not a step to skip – this gives the soup its deep, seafood flavour and its nice pink colour.