Authentic Bisque Recipe France, Europe

Adapted from Larousse Gastronomique, this version of the creamy French soup has rice as a thickener which is cooked separately in consommé and is later processed with pounded shells. The flavor is enhanced with both dry white wine, as well as Cognac, together with seasoning consisting only of bouquet garni and some salt and pepper. If desired, the tail meat can be used to make medallions; the finished soup is garnished with finely diced meat from the thorax, legs, and claws of the lobster.

Once a fixture on the menu at Gordon Ramsay’s Savoy Grill, this lobster and Cornish crab bisque recipe combines both lobster and crab together to make the perfectly seasoned and creamy soup. The soup is thickened with double cream and served with poached lobster meat and brandy butter.

Although traditionally prepared with crab, lobster, or crayfish, this French mussel bisque adapted from Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa, How Easy Is That is well worth its place in the group. The dish is made with the cooking liquid from the mussels, but the shells are discarded, and only mussel meat is used. A copious amount of wine, a whole bottle, is used for making the soup, while large amounts of half-and-half and cream thicken the soup at the end.