Sometime late last year, after packing the folks off to Europe for their holiday, I had the whole house to myself and without the watchful eye of my excessively health conscious mother, the kitchen to do as I please. For 10 days my maid and I lived it up and cooked up feasts on a daily basis gloating as we shoved mouthfuls of calorie laden dishes into our mouths, occassionally verbalizing "oh we are so BAAAAD!". On one of those days I knew it was an opportune time to have friends over and create a bit of chaos in the kitchen.

I had really wanted to try the lobster bisque that my brother cooked for his birthday dinner 2 years ago and immediately e-mailed him to ask for the recipe. Thanks to Jen who told us where to get fresh live seafood, Dezzo and I bought a 900g live lobster for the soup (I think I went a bit mad as the recipe called for 500g of lobster). When Dezzo looked absolutely mortified the minute I told him he'd be doing all the killing, I quickly told the friendly lady boss to get it sorted for us :) The flavour of the bisque turned out really well, but it was a tad too thick and rich. I suspect it's because in our last minute scramble to get ingredients, I got lazy and bought thick ready made chicken stock in cartons instead of boiling my own from fish carcasses. I had the leftover the next day watering it down with some water and the consistency was alot better. I would also substitute single instead of using double cream next time.

Lobster Bisque

Serves 6

Ingredients:
1. 500 g of fresh lobster (chopped into pieces)
2. 6 table spoons of butter
3. 1 big onion chopped
4. 1 carrot diced
5. 1 celery stick diced
6. 3 tablespoons brandy
7. 1 cup of dry white wine (250 ml approximately)
8. 4 cups (1 litre) fish stock
9. 1 tablespoon tomato puree (I used the really think concentrated gunky kind)
10. ½ cup of long grain rice
11. 1 fresh bouquet garni
12. 150 ml of double (heavy) cream (plus extra for garnish)
13. salt, ground white pepper
14. Cayenne pepper


1. Melt half the butter in a large pan, add vegetables and cook over low heat until soft
2. Add the lobster and stir until the shell on each piece turns red
3. Pour over the brandy and set it alight, when the flames die down, add wine and boil, reduce it to half. Pour in fish stock and simmer 2-3 minutes, then remove the lobster
4. Stir in the tomato puree and rice, add the bouquet garni and cook until rice is tender
5. Meanwhile, remove the lobster meat from the shell and return shells to the pan. Dice the lobster meat and set it aside
6. When the rice is cooked, discard the larger pieces of shell. Tip the mixture into a blender or food processor and process to a puree. Press the puree through a fine sieve placed over a clean pan. Stir the mixture then heat until almost boiling.
7. Season and then lower the heat. Stir in the cream slowly.
8. Dice the remaining butter and whisk it into the bisque, one piece at a time.
9. Add the diced lobster and serve immediately after garnishing with cream and adding some brandy (Optional, I opted not too add the additional booze).

You can get bouquet garni from Jason's supermarket and I used XO in place of brandy. It's quite alot of work so do allocate about 2 hours to get this done, but trust me, it's worth every bead of sweat. We went to morton's for Dezzo's company christmas dinner and when we had a taste of their bisque we personally found it flat and lacking in rich lobster flavour. I'm not trying to blow my own horn here, but it's simply because when you are making this yourself, you have control over the amount of lobster you want to put it. You can go a bit mad like me and add 900g or more even, the more you add the more lobster essence you are going to get.

A definate must try!






Ed made his much desired roast beef from Sydney days.