Sweet Potato and Red Lentil Bisque

This bisque has a very festive flair to me with the contrast of the bright orange soup to the green leaves of cilantro and the red pomegranate seeds. A bisque makes a perfect first course or appetizer for any holiday dinner.

I was afraid it would be a bit sweet for my taste, but the Thai red chili paste and pomegranates took care of that and gave it a nice zing. Taste it before serving and if it’s still not spicy enough, add a shot or two of Sriracha. This bisque can be made this ahead and gently heated prior to serving, or better yet, it can be frozen for up to eight weeks, making it one less thing that has to be prepared at the last minute.

For a cheery and colorful addition to your special holiday meals, give this sweet potato and red lentil bisque a try.

Sweet Potato and Red Lentil Bisque
Adapted from O, The Oprah Magazine – serves 6
Printable Recipe

1 pound sweet potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
1 cup red lentils, picked over and rinsed
½ cup dried apricots, quartered
¼ cup chopped shallots
¼ to ½ teaspoon Thai red chili paste – I used Thai red chili sauce
4 cups chicken broth or vegetable broth
¾ cup light coconut milk
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Chopped cilantro
4 tablespoons pomegranate juice or seeds, optional but recommended
Sriracha as needed

Place sweet potatoes, lentils, apricots, onion, chili paste, and broth in a large pot. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce to low heat, cover, and simmer until lentils are falling apart, about 25 minutes. Let soup sit, uncovered, 10 minutes.

Add coconut milk. Using a stick blender, puree soup until smooth, in batches if necessary. Stir in salt and pepper, and add more if desired. Taste and add more Thai red chili paste/sauce and/or Sriracha if desired (we did both). Divide pureed soup among bowls, top each with cilantro and pomegranate juice or seeds (if using) and serve.

Cook’s notes: Brown or green lentils can be substituted for the red but they won't fall apart as easily, so forgo the blending and serve the soup as a chunky stew instead. The bisque can be frozen for up to 8 weeks.

For better viewing, click photos to enlarge.

This will be shared with Foodie Friday at Rattlebridge Farm, Miz Helen’s Country Kitchen Full Plate Thursday, and Weekend Bites at Simple Recipes.    

Have a great weekend everyone.

Lobster Bisque

Maine lobsters are a big treat, so why not get the most out of them. After our lobster boil a couple of weeks ago, link to post here, when Meakin had live lobsters flown in from Maine, we saved some of the cooked lobster bodies so we could make lobster bisque.

Seafood bisques are smooth and creamy soups of French origin and are very rich. They are based on crustaceans and can be made from lobster, crab, shrimp, or crayfish. Bisques are perfect for special occasions, such as birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays such as Valentine’s Day.

Lobsters can be cooked especially for bisque, but left-over lobster bodies are the most practical to use and work great.  This recipe is from cookbook author & New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman and he says that if you haven’t saved the bodies from a lobster feast, they are available from fish markets, which either give them away or charge minimally. I don’t have any firsthand experience with that, but I am definitely going to look into it when we are in Florida next. Our favorite seafood market is Merrick’s in Cape Coral and they sell live Maine lobsters, so I am going to ask. I know I won’t find lobster bodies at our local market here in the mountains. Do any of you, especially those that live in the Northeast or near the ocean, know if fish markets sell or give away lobster bodies?

Our Ingles market here may not have Maine lobsters, but they make up for it by stocking French baguettes from Nancy Silverton’s Le Brea Bakery in California. Chef and baker Nancy Silverton is credited for sparking the artisan bread renaissance. Talk about a fabulous crusty baguette – ooh, la, la. You would have to travel to France to find a better baguette than the ones from La Brea.

Seafood bisque is traditionally served in a low two-handled cup on a saucer or in a mug. It is very rich and a little bit goes a long way and a crusty French baguette served alongside is a must.

Lobster Bisque
Adapted from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything - serves 4
Printable Recipe

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter
1 medium onion, chopped
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 medium carrot, peeled and chopped
1 bay leaf
3 sprigs fresh thyme or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
4 to 8 lobster bodies, cooked or uncooked, with as many other lobster shells as you can scavenge, plus coral, tomalley, and any stray bits of meat you might find*
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup cored, seeded, and chopped tomatoes (canned are fine; and don't bother to drain)
6 cups full flavored chicken stock or store bought fish stock or strained liquid reserved from boiling lobsters
1 cup heavy cream
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Minced fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves for garnish

Place 2 tablespoons of the butter in a large-deep saucepan or casserole over medium heat. When it melts, add the onion, garlic, carrot, bay leaf, and thyme and cook, stirring, until the onion softens, 5 to 10 minutes.

Add the lobster bodies and, if they are uncooked, cook, stirring, until they turn red, about 10 minutes (if they're already cooked, cook, stirring, about 5 minutes.

Add the wine and tomatoes and turn the heat to medium-high. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat to low, cover, and cook for 10 minutes.

Add the stock, turn the heat to high, and bring back to a boil. Once again, turn the heat to low and cover; cook for 20 minutes. Remove the bay leaf and thyme sprigs. Remove the lobster shells, crack them if necessary, and pick off any meat you find. Return the bits of meat to the soup (reserve any large pieces of meat you have for the final addition below).

Pass the soup through a food mill or puree it in a blender or food processor. (You may prepare the soup in advance up to this point. Cover, refrigerate for up to 2 days, and reheat before proceeding.)Return the soup to the pot and bring to a boil. Add the remaining butter, in bits, until it melts. Add the cream and any bits of lobster meat and heat through. Season with salt and pepper, garnish with chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, and serve.

For better viewing, click on photos to enlarge.

This will be shared with Foodie Friday at Rattlebridge Farm, Miz Helen’s Country Kitchen Full Plate Thursday, and Foodie Friday at Simple Recipes.    

Have a great weekend everyone.

Ginger Carrot Bisque – a perfect transition into fall

As fall approaches mountain towns such as ours begin to decorate with pumpkins, scarecrows and cornstalks and I begin to think of what I call transitional foods. They are the kind of recipes that bridge the gap between the changing of the seasons. In the fall transitional foods are lighter than the recipes we associate with cold days in the winter such as heavy stews or hardy soups, yet they aren’t the light weight summer salads I featured last week either. They fall somewhere in between. In the fall you might call them “before the leaves change” recipes.

One of my favorite transitional foods is bisque. It’s not really a soup or a broth and it’s certainly not a stew – it’s somewhere in between, just like the first few weeks when summer draws to an end and fall begins. My friend Christo from Chez What refers to bisque as soup’s royal cousin.

Some of my favorite recipes for bisque use pumpkin, which is certainly a fall favorite. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you might remember my Pumpkin Bisque, which I served in demitasse cups as a classy appetizer for a dinner party. All gussied up and served in fine bone china demitasse cups the pumpkin bisque did look rather royal. Guests are quite surprised when they are served bisque (or soup) to sip from a demitasse cup. I always get “oohs and ahs” when I pass it on a silver platter. Give it a try sometime – you’ll be pleasantly pleased and so will your guests.

If you can find organic carrots with their green tops attached for this bisque, they are so much fresher and tastier than the bagged variety. Don’t bother too much with perfect chopping of the vegetables – they get pureed in the end, so don’t waste time on something that doesn’t show. But at the same time, you don’t want some pieces large and some small because they won’t brown well or cook evenly. Serve as a first course or snazzy appetizer.

Ginger Carrot Bisque
Adapted from Barefoot Kitchen Witch & The Herb Companion
Serves 4 

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large yellow onion, peeled and chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 ½ pounds carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
1 tablespoon of peeled and finely chopped fresh gingerroot
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
2 teaspoons grated orange peel
3 ¼ cups chicken stock
¾ cup dry white wine
¼ cup half and half or cream (optional)
Finely chopped fresh Italian parsley

Melt the butter in a large stock pot. Add the onions, celery and carrots and cook, stirring occasionally, until they soften, about five minutes. The carrots do not have to be completely cooked. Season with the salt and pepper, then add the garlic and ginger and sauté a minute or so, taking care not to let the garlic burn. Add the cumin, coriander and orange peel and stir for a minute or two more.

Add the chicken stock and wine, cover and bring to a boil. As soon as it boils, reduce heat to simmer and cook until the carrots are soft, about 10 – 20 minutes, depending on the size of the carrot pieces. When the carrots are soft, transfer the mixture to a food processor and puree in batches until smooth. Return to the stock pot and, if desired, add the half and half or cream and stir well. Reheat over low until the bisque is hot. Taste and add more salt and pepper if needed.  Garnish with chopped parsley and serve right away.

Pumpkin Bisque --- a seasonal favorite --- served as an appetizer in demitasse cups

During the holidays I like to serve seasonal soups and pumpkin is one of my favorites. If you want to add flair and make it extra special, serve it in demitasse cups as an appetizer. It’s an unusual way to serve it and people are always surprised and pleased. I have an avocado soup that I use in the summer and I always use demitasse cups. If you plan to serve it this way, I recommend that you blend the soup before serving, either carefully in a blender or with a stick blender, which I find is one of the handiest tools in the kitchen.

I have two pumpkin soup recipes that I alternate between, Pumpkin Bisque and Southwestern Pumpkin Soup. To make these vegetarian, use vegetable broth in place of the chicken broth. You could also substitute sweet potatoes. Both of these are fast and easy and can be made in advance and gently reheated before serving. Be sure to buy pumpkin without the added spices.

Both recipes call for nutmeg. I prefer freshly grated to the pre-grated canned version. A rasp, another of my favorite kitchen tools, is perfect for grating whole nutmeg. They also make zesting a lemon a breeze. They can be found at gourmet shops or kitchen supply stores. Rasps are inexpensive and cost around $15.

Pumpkin Bisque

2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons finely minced garlic
½ cup finely minced yellow onion or the white part of a leek
1 tsp rubbed sage
¼ teaspoon dried thyme
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
1 (15 oz) can pumpkin, no spices added
3 cups chicken or vegetable broth
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, not the kind from the green can
½ cup heavy cream

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the garlic, onions, sage, thyme, cayenne and nutmeg. Cook on medium heat until onions are translucent. Add the pumpkin puree and broth and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the salt, pepper and Parmesan cheese and stir well. Add heavy cream, heat and serve. Serves 4.

Southwestern Pumpkin Soup

3 cups chicken broth or vegetable broth

1 cup heavy cream

1 (15 oz) can pumpkin, no spices added

3 Tbsp. dark brown sugar

1 tsp. ground cumin

½ tsp chili powder

½ tsp ground coriander

1/8 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Optional garnishes: Cheddar cheese and cilantro

Bring chicken stock and cream to a boil in a heavy medium-sized saucepan. Whisk in canned pumpkin, brown sugar, cumin, chili powder, coriander, and nutmeg. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until soup thickens slightly and flavors blend. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Garnish with grated Cheddar cheese and finely chopped fresh cilantro if desired. Serves 4.