We Got Yer Bisque Right Here

The Big Guy on the Taiga shifted his venue to the steamy pine-and-cattle country of east Texas hard against the petroleum-and-hurricane-ridden Gulf of Mexico coast. You gotta go a ways offshore in the tropical ocean to get to Homarus americanus territory. Pretty much across the Florida peninsula and out onto the Atlantic continental slope, I’m guessing. As we’ve been deep in the Big Guy’s debt all these years, I offered to ship him turkey and beef sandwiches with stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy and mayo nonstop to Houston. Be that as it may, we managed to build a bisque on the back of a couple buckets of oysters carried most providently across the Bay Bridge by elements of the Eastern Shore Army.

You can do this with raw oysters, of course. On the other hand, you can do it a bit more easily, and with a touch more flavor, if you roast the oysters until they open on an open fire, then compile the meats and liquors into a small bowl. We ended up going both routes at once.

This one’s about as simple and delicious as food gets. A little rich, perhaps. But remember that this is the low-fat, high-fiber, favorable glycemic index version. Warp out!

Make a medium white sauce. For the 25 or so we had hammering the bisque this year, I used, I believe, 3 sticks of unsalted butter, a heap of flour, and good low-sodium turkey broth (only in the market for a few holiday weeks, make use of it when you can), about 2/3 to 1/3 with milk. Let this simmer for a while while the Oyster Preparation Subcommittee does their thing out at the fire pit. As it simmers, put in a handful of fresh thyme still on the branches, plenty of ground pepper, and salt as needed. It will thicken up beautifully as it steeps.

When the oysters and their liquor are in hand, put plenty of sweet sherry into the soup. I use lots, probably a half liter for the 3 or 4 liters of bisque base. When the alcohol cooks out of the sherry, add the oysters (snipped into fragments with a scissors if large) and their liquid. When it’s all hot, fish out the thyme stems, top it with more pepper and some sweet paprika and serve it up. Goes well with oyster crackers spiced heavily with a touch of olive oil and plenty of Old Bay. I like the Old Bay better on the crackers for this. The bisque itself is such a beautifully clear flavor that there’s no sense mucking it up.