It’s Soup Week – I feel warmer already. Nothing says winter & comfort better than soup, and this week 14 food bloggers joined mittens to warm up your week. Actually, I should say 15 cooks because this recipe is my husband’s. Seriously… it’s all him. We don’t call him The Complete Package for nothing, folks. He not only cooks, he is the Boss of Bisque. And this bisque is boss – it’s rich, it’s plush (if you can call a soup such a thing) and it’s heavenly. I swear it.
PS – Want to impress friends & family or blow their minds with a gourmet-quality shee-shee-foo-foo seafood soup? Well, this is the one. Not only is it ‘scrape the bowl’ fabulous, it’s fabulously easy to make. {our little secret}
The Complete Package’s Shrimp Bisque
3 tablespoons of good quality olive oil
1 1/2 pounds medium shrimp, shelled & deveined (save the shells)
1/4 cup unsalted butter (1/2 stick)
1 large onion, diced
1 carrot, peeled & chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
2 1/2 cups water
1 cup dry white wine (TCP uses pinot grigio)
2 cups cooked white rice (great way to use leftover rice!)
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
3 cubes of chicken bullion (or 1 1/2 tablespoons of granules)
1 16-ounce can diced tomatoes
2 cups heavy cream
In a large soup pot or Dutch oven, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the shrimp shells and cook until pink, stirring often to keep them from burning. Remove the shells with a slotted spoon and discard them, leaving all the shrimp-flavored oil in the pot (this creates a more flavorful base for your soup, so please don’t skip this step).
Add the peeled, deveined shrimp to the hot oil and cook, stirring often, until they turn pink and curl up (about 3 minutes). Remove them from the oil with your slotted spoon and place them in a bowl; cover and set aside.
Reduce the heat to medium; add the butter, onion, carrot and celery to the pan. Cook, stirring often, until the veggies are tender. Add the water, white wine, cooked rice, bay leaf, salt, cayenne pepper and chicken bullion and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture comes to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, and continue to simmer for 10 minutes.
Turn off the stove and then remove the bay leaf from the soup. Add the can of diced tomatoes, juice included, and the cooked shrimp, stirring to combine. Using an immersion blender, puree the soup until mostly smooth. If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can do this in your blender. Just work carefully and in small batches; be sure to cover the lid of your blender with a kitchen towel to prevent spatters. Be careful; the mixture will be hot!
Once blended, return the soup to the pot; stir in the cream and bring it to a gentle boil over medium heat. Once it’s thoroughly heated, it’s ready to serve.
The Complete Package insists on serving this with hot buttered sourdough bread. And, as usual, he’s right. But please don’t tell him I said so.
Don’t forget to visit the other ‘souper’ Soup Week bloggers:
MONDAY:
Broccoli Cheddar Soup with Bread Bowls @ Comfortably Domestic
Hearty Vegetable Mexican Soup & Jalapeno Cornbread @ The Girly Girl Cooks
3 Bean & Spinach Soup @ The Hill Country Cook
TUESDAY:
Garbage Soup @ Munching in the Mitten
Gnocchi Pesto Soup @ La Petite Pancake
WEDNESDAY:
40 Clove Garlic Chicken Soup with Parmesan Croutons @ Country Cleaver
Sunchoke Soup with Gorgonzola & Honey Crostini @ Climbing Grier Mountain
THURSDAY:
Coconut Curry with a lot of Aloha @ The Grommom
Beef Bourguignon @ Bakeaholic Mama
FRIDAY:
Eat Live Run’s White Chicken Chili @ Tenaciously Yours
Arizona Mountain Soup with Cornbread @ Decadent Philistines
SATURDAY:
‘Fungus Among Us’ Mushroom Soup @ Kvetchin’ Kitchen
Pink Prosecco Soup – a dessert soup From My Sweet Heart
Nothing like a little dessert soup to wrap up Soup Week.
Great job, ladies! As always, it’s an honor to cook with you. And TCP.
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