Prawn & fennel bisque

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• jenny

  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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• Jill Graham

  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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• kjc

  28 December 2009

  kjc rated this recipe

  

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• tanyah

  08 April 2010

  tanyah rated and commented on this recipe

  

  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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• richbreckell

  23 October 2010

  richbreckell commented on this recipe

  What was the consensus, remove the shells before blitzing?

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• keith_burt

  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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• Magic Maggie

  02 February 2011

  Magic Maggie rated and commented on this recipe

  

  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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• coby

  09 February 2011

  coby rated and commented on this recipe

  

  delicious , can be frozen too.

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• appelflap

  20 October 2011

  appelflap rated this recipe

  

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• Rose

  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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• Danni Smith

  17 December 2011

  Danni Smith rated and commented on this recipe

  

  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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• Niccyb

  05 January 2012

  Niccyb rated and commented on this recipe

  

  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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• MatejaP

  15 January 2012

  MatejaP rated this recipe

  

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• Sarah

  24 January 2012

  Sarah rated this recipe

  

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• JG

  15 February 2012

  JG commented on this recipe

  Just a note to say that most of those who have already commented are misunderstanding the recipe. As with any shellfish bisque, the whole point is to blitz the shells along with everything else, then sieve them out. You don't take them out, you need them for their flavour. The sieving takes a while but the whole enterprise is worth it.

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• tanyah

  18 February 2012

  tanyah commented on this recipe

  I have made this 3 times but I am now letting the recipe go. As previously said you leave the shells in and blitz them and, yes, it is delicious but the work involved is totally out of proportion. Shelling the prawns and removing all the veins is hard enough but the sieving is SUCH hard work if you do it properly and really should be done twice for best effect. The flavour is fab but there are too many tasty recipes out there with a lot less effort. It is not appreciated because ultimately it is still 'just soup'.

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• Recipes

  10 March 2012

  Recipes rated this recipe

  

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• Sarahfh

  13 May 2012

  Sarahfh rated and commented on this recipe

  

  Really didn't enjoy this. thought the flavour combinations just didn't work particularly well in this dish. Unfortunately disappointed.

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• FrenchFoodie

  11 December 2012

  FrenchFoodie rated and commented on this recipe

  

  Don't cut corners. I followed the recipe and some bore in mind some of the comments and mine turned out AMAZING! Best soup I have ever made and I am making it for Xmas Eve this year.

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• GillianB

  10 January 2013

  GillianB rated and commented on this recipe

  

  I made this soup as a starter for Christmas dinner on the 25th. My guests raved about it and asked for seconds. I made it the day before and just reheated it slowly adding the cream. Great success.

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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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Difficulty and servings

Serves 8

Preparation and cooking times

Prep 30 mins

Cook 55 mins

Good for you

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)

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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