I was contacted by this very cool web site that posts short video clips on a variety of subjects, one of them being cooking. With Father’s Day coming, I thought I would post this one on How to Make Lobster Bisque.

Some of you may be thinking of buying live Maine lobsters for dad this weekend and not sure what to do with the head and shells after you feast on the tail and claws. This video will show you how to make a delicious Lobster Bisque with those parts you typically throw away.

The ingredient list and recipe is below and if you are buying live lobsters, be sure to read my article, How to Buy Live Maine Lobsters and Not Get Ripped Off. The article will also give you a great resource for buying lobsters online.

Click anywhere on the image to start. 

Lobster Bisque Recipe - Recipe from VideoJug.com

Ingredients:

2 lobster heads and leftover lobster pieces
1 ¾ oz butter
1 onion , chopped
2 carrots , peeled and chopped
2 tomatoes , chopped
2 oz tomato paste
4 garlic cloves , crushed
A few sprigs of thyme
4 ¼ fl oz brandy
2 fl oz sweet white wine , such as Muscat
2 1⁄8 pt fish stock or water
17 fl oz cream
salt , to taste
1 pinch of cayenne pepper
A few sprigs of parsley , to garnish

Equiptment:

1 cutting board
1 knife
1 large saucepan
1 wooden spoon
1 sieve
1 bowl
1 ladle
1 hand blender

How to Make Lobster Bisque

Chop the lobster head

Remove the shell from the head (set aside to garnish with later). Chop the meat and do the same with any other joints and leftover pieces of lobster.

Make the bisque

Place the large saucepan on a high heat and melt the butter. Add the onion, carrots and garlic. Cook while stirring until the onions turn translucent. Add the chopped lobster pieces, tomato paste, brandy, sweet white wine, chopped tomatoes, thyme, cayenne pepper and salt. Stir well and add the fish stock

Finish with the cream

Add the cream to the saucepan and allow to simmer for approximately 1 hour.

Strain the bisque

After approximately 1 hour, strain the broth into another saucepan (be sure to strain as much liquid from the solidsas possible before discarding them).

Whisk the soup

Stir vigorously until frothy.

Serve

Ladle the soup into a serving bowl. Garnish with a few sprigs of parsley and the lobster head. Enjoy this seafood soup on a cold winter’s day and enjoy all your favourite flavours of summer!

This is one of those “good-as-it-gets” recipes if you like fennel as much as I do. In my opinion, fennel and leeks are two of the most underrated vegetables available to home cooks and when you discover the flavor they add to a recipe, you’ll be searching for more ways to use them.

I’m even more surprised my 7-year-old daughter loves slices of raw fennel as her side dish vegetable. On the other hand, if I tried to serve her fennel cooked to bring out the sweetness of the root, she would have nothing to do with it. Strange?

You may also be asking yourself just what the heck is Pernod and where do I find it. I happened to find some in the way, way back of my liquor cabinet next to some ancient Tia Maria that hasn’t seen the light of day since we last moved.

Pernod (pear’-no) is an aniseed-flavored liquor whose taste comes from the star anise spice, similar in flavor to fennel making them a great one-two combo. Although made by the same company that once made the infamous, hallucinogenic Absinthe, a popular drink with poets, writers and artists at the turn of the 19th century, today’s Pernod does not contain the dangerous toxic oil from wormwood and is great as an aperitif or cooking.

Not only is Pernod fantastic for adding flavor to any braised fennel, cabbage, onion or carrot dishes, you can use it for deglazing or add some to a salad dressing to boost the flavor. Just remember, it is has an alcoholic content of 40% so be careful when cooking with it around children.

You should be able to find it in most liquor stores but you may want to call before you go shopping for it. And since you most likely won’t be cooking with it all that much, a small bottle should last you a long time.

This recipe was in my May 2007 Fine Cooking and was next to a few other shrimp recipes that I can’t wait to try. I adapted it some when I made it because I didn’t have the full 3 cups of sliced fennel the recipes calls for, my daughter must have been snacking on it. The recipe came out great and I can only imagine it would have been better yet if I used the full 3 cups.

This recipe doesn’t take long at all to prepare so it’s a great midweek kind of dish. I didn’t have any fresh thyme or parsley when I prepared this and didn’t feel like going out to shop but even so, the outcome was incredible. It could only get better with fresh herbs.

I served it over my oldest daughter’s favorite food, Near East Rice Pilaf.

Shrimp with Fennel, Tomato & Pernod Sauce

Ingredients

1 pound shrimp
Salt and pepper
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 small to medium sized bulb of fennel
3 cloves garlic
¼ cup Pernod
1 – 14.5 oz can of dice tomatoes
1 teaspoon fresh thyme, chopped
¼ cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Prep the Ingredients

I like to buy my frozen shrimp unpeeled, with tails. You can find them already peeled and deveined but if they are not, you need to peel, devein, rinse and pat them dry.

Slice the fennel into very thin slices, much thinner than you’ll notice I did in my photograph. What was I thinking?

Smash your garlic or chop it finely as well as your fresh herbs.

How to Prepare at Home

Pat the shrimp dry with a paper towel. If you don’t, they will steam instead of sauté and we don’t want that.  Season them with some salt and pepper.

Heat up your sauté pan or frying pan over medium-high heat and add 2 tablespoons of the oil. You want to get the oil hot, but not smoking. Add the shrimp in a single layer. Sauté for about 2 minutes and then flip and cook for another minute or two. You want the shrimp brown but not completely cooked through. You will finish cooking them in the sauce.

Remove the shrimp from the pan and lower the heat to medium. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the pan along with the fennel and garlic. Season with a little salt and sauté until the fennel is golden brown. This should take about 8 minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat and carefully add the Pernod. The recipe said the Pernod might flame up so I decided to show my oldest daughter what that looked like. I tilted the pan a little over the flame so the Pernod would ignite and we were all a little surprised by the size of the flame. Luckily I had the pan cover out and quickly covered the pan and put the flame out. I’m saying this to let you know, you need to be careful whenever you deglaze a pan with alcohol.

Once you add the Pernod, put the pan back on the burner and cook until most of the Pernod is evaporated. Add the tomatoes with juice, thyme and half of the parsley. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer and cook for about 3 minutes.

Add the previously cooked shrimp, stir to coat with sauce and cook for another minute or two until the shrimp are opaque throughout.

Let it sit for a minute or two before tasting and then adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. Serve over rice, pasta or by itself, as my wife likes it, sprinkled with the reserved parsley.

This is a good one that just may become a regular in you cooking repertoire. I would have no problem serving this to guest at a dinner party.

Here’s a “shortcut” meal that takes as long as it takes to cook a ½ pound of penne pasta. It’s quick, easy, and delicious and if there are any leftovers, you’ll have a great lunch the next day.

The idea for this recipe originally came while my wife and I were on our honeymoon in Italy years ago. We visited my sister-in-laws friends who lived in Rome and invited us over for dinner. They made this dish with canned or jarred Italian tuna, fresh artichoke hearts and olives that they just brought back from Sicily while visiting family.

As simple as this dish was, it was one of the best meals my wife and I had on our trip and that’s including some very nice restaurants. I think it had something to do with being in someone’s home, sharing a meal with new friends and being on an adventure.

The reason I call it a shortcut meal is because I used canned artichoke hearts instead of fresh and I’m sure this pasta dish would even be better with fresh artichoke hearts but I needed to prepare this in a hurry.

I also used a jar of solid tuna imported from Italy and a can of artichoke hearts imported from Spain. The artichoke hearts should be packed in water not oil. Both these items were picked up at an Italian specialty store.

There is really nothing to cook but the pasta. Oh yeah, I did sauté some garlic in the oil the tuna was packed in. The rest of the ingredients just need to be heated up while the pasta is cooking. Here’s what I did.

Ingredients:

½ pound penne pasta (1/2 a box)
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 - 10.5 oz  jar of imported tuna packed in olive oil
1 – 14 oz. can of artichoke hearts packed in water, cut into quarters
10 or 12 Kalamata olives, pitted and cut in half or quarters
Salt & pepper to taste
Parmesan cheese, optional

How to Prepare at Home

Get a big pot of water boiling for the pasta. Add some salt and throw in the penne pasta. Immediately give it a stir and cook until al dente. (You can read my page on how to cook pasta here)

While the pasta is cooking, sauté the garlic in some of the oil the tuna is packed in. When the garlic gives off that incredible fragrance when cooked in oil, add the artichoke hearts, tuna (with oil) and olives.

While the sauce is heating up, the artichoke hearts and tuna will breakup into smaller pieces. No problem.

When I was preparing this at home, I thought the sauce was too thick so I added a few ladles of water from the pasta pot. It helped thin out the sauce just a little so it would be easier to cover the penne. Taste the sauce and adjust the seasonings with salt and pepper.

Once the pasta is done, drain it and plate it. Add your sauce and serve. I’m not sure if Parmesan cheese is right with this dish but my wife grated some on hers and it looked good so I did the same. It was delicious.