Prawn & fennel bisque

Prawn & fennel bisque

A luxurious seafood soup that is rich in flavour, perfect for formal entertaining and low in calories too

Difficulty and servings

Easy

Serves 8

Preparation and cooking times

Preparation time

Prep 30 mins

Cook time

Cook 55 mins

Freezable

Good for you

Method

  1. Shell the prawns, then fry the shells in the oil in a large pan for about 5 mins. Add the onion, fennel and carrots and cook for about 10 mins until the veg start to soften. Pour in the wine and brandy, bubble hard for about 1 min to drive off the alcohol, then add the tomatoes, stock and paprika. Cover and simmer for 30 mins. Meanwhile, chop the prawns.
  2. Blitz the soup as finely as you can with a stick blender or food processor, then press through a sieve into a bowl. Spend a bit of time really working the mixture through the sieve as this will give the soup its velvety texture.
  3. Tip back into a clean pan, add the prawns and cook for 10 mins, then blitz again until smooth. You can make and chill this a day ahead or freeze it for 1 month. Thaw ovenight in the fridge. To serve, gently reheat in a pan with the cream. If garnishing, cook the 8 prawns in a little butter. Spoon into small bowls and top with the prawns and snipped fennel fronds.
Try

Sara says...

'The prawn shells give a deep seafood flavour to this luxurious soup. It's quite a rich dish, so serve in your smallest bowls.'

Per serving

120 kcalories, protein 7g, carbohydrate 7g, fat 6 g, saturated fat 1g, fibre 3g, sugar 6g, salt 1.17 g

Recipe from Good Food magazine, December 2009.

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Latest comments and suggestions

  • 09 December 2009

    jenny commented on this recipe

    I want to try this as the christmas starter, do you remove the prawn shells before pushing it through the sieve?

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  • 10 December 2009

    Jill Graham commented on this recipe

    I am going to make this on Saturday but assumed you would take out the shells after the first 10 minutes and before adding the veg. otherwise when you "blitz" it all the prawn shells would be included.

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  • Binder photo kjc

    28 December 2009

    kjc rated this recipe

    5 stars

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  • 08 April 2010

    tanyah rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    Delicious rich flavour, quite a lot of effort putting it through the sieve but you really do get a lovely velvety texture

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  • 23 October 2010

    richbreckell commented on this recipe

    What was the consensus, remove the shells before blitzing?

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  • 01 January 2011

    keith_burt commented on this recipe

    I cooked this for our New Years Eve Party last night and it was fantastic. A smooth and rich soup. In answer the the prawn shells question - my partner misunderstood my instructions when she went to the supermarket and bought ready shelled prawns. So instead of the shells I added 5 prawns at the start of the process. This gave the soup the same intense flavour but also meant I could blitz all the ingediants together without having to fish out the shells.

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  • 02 February 2011

    Magic Maggie rated and commented on this recipe

    1 stars

    Didn't work for me at all. Too much effort for too little flavour. Got beautiful prawns, organic fennel and fish stock. But it turned out tasting like tomato soup without the flavour. I added a can of salmon and that helped. But it's just not worth the effort.

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  • 09 February 2011

    coby rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    delicious , can be frozen too.

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  • 20 October 2011

    appelflap rated this recipe

    5 stars

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  • 06 December 2011

    Rose commented on this recipe

    Just made this soup for the first time and it's turned out delicious. Regarding the prawn shells. I took them out of the pan before I put in the vegs. Then I placed them in a tied muslin and put them back in the pan whilst all the vegs were cooking so that they could continue to enrich the stock flavour. I added a little touch of chilli to the soup. Incidentally, just blending was sufficient and I didn't need to push it thru' a sieve. It was quite an easy soup to make.

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  • 17 December 2011

    Danni Smith rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    Just made this soup to freeze for our Christmas day starter and it was so good I had to have a bowl now! Extremely flavourful. I only had 4 langustines with shells so to make up the rest with raw shelled tiger prawns. I added both the flesh and the shells of the langustine in the first part and left them in right through to the blending - I think this really added to the flavour. I did use three stock cubes to the litre mix, however the flavour in the finished product is very much of shell fish rather than the stock cubes. After blending the second time I did pass the bisque again as it wasn't quite ad smooth as I would like. I also added a little extra carrot but think I would recommend against this as my soup is a little redder than I'd like and has lost a little of the fennel flavour.

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  • 05 January 2012

    Niccyb rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    Made the soup for a New Year's Eve' mega-meal. Utterly fantastic. Really, really good. As for the shells, I left them in and blitzed them up with the rest of the soup. I did this and sieved with a really fine sieve (took about half an hour to do both sievings). After sieving, I took the solids and pressed them inside muslin to extract all the liquor. Hard work, but well worth the effort. I'll be making this again.

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  • 15 January 2012

    MatejaP rated this recipe

    4 stars

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  • 24 January 2012

    Sarah rated this recipe

    5 stars

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Difficulty and servings

Easy

Serves 8

Preparation and cooking times

Preparation time

Prep 30 mins

Cook time

Cook 55 mins

Freezable

Good for you

An elegant treat

Ingredients

  • 450g raw tiger prawns in their shells
  • 4 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 large onion , chopped
  • 1 large fennel bulb , chopped, fronds reserved
  • 2 carrots , chopped
  • 150ml dry white wine
  • 1 tbsp brandy
  • 400g can chopped tomatoes
  • 1l fish stock
  • 2 generous pinches paprika

TO SERVE

  • 150ml pot double cream
  • 8 tiger prawns , shelled, but tail tips left on (optional)
  • fennel fronds (optional)
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Per serving

120 kcalories, protein 7g, carbohydrate 7g, fat 6 g, saturated fat 1g, fibre 3g, sugar 6g, salt 1.17 g

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