Cannabis Cuisine Part 6: Lobster Bisque
Hey folks! Welcome once again to another pulse pounding post from Cobourg’s one and only locally owned cannabis retailer. As I write this, Northumberland is experiencing an unseasonably cold, gray day. While most would begrudge this affront to summer, the shift in climate tickles me quite pink. Cause as the temperature drops, we enter into what I like to call “Soup weather”. That’s why this week; we’re going to be learning how to make a cannabis infused soup that is not only savory and warm but also fancy enough to shut up anyone who says I don’t have class. So, pull out those pots and pans and rev-up that blender; it’s time to make some Lobster Bisque!
What You Need
This is not a soup for the faint of heart. Literally, the butter and oil content are out of this world, so if you’re looking to preserve your waistline turn back now. For those of you up to the challenge of adding a hole to your belt strap, let’s run over everything we’re going to need to put his concoction together.
2-3 Large, fresh lobsters
4-ounces of butter. (Infused with the cannabis strain of your choice! For info on infusing butter and oil, refer to an earlier blog post where we ran through the steps) In addition, we’re going to want to keep a couple extra tablespoons of butter for the purpose of cooking our lobster as well as garnishing our soup at the end.
1/3 cup of olive oil (see above)
2 large carrots (diced)
1 medium yellow onion (diced)
2 large stalks of celery (diced)
4 cloves of garlic (crushed or minced)
2 tablespoons of tomato paste
¼ cup of brandy or sherry
1 cup of dry white wine
5 cups of low sodium chicken stock
3 sprigs of flat leaf parsley (save some minced leaves for garnish)
1 bay leaf
½ cup of heavy cream
Salt and pepper to taste
Cayenne pepper to taste
A rimmed baking sheet to catch juices from the lobster
As you can see from the list of ingredients, this isn’t a simple soup. A blender of some kind is necessary to get the texture that you’re going to want out of this veritable butter brew.
How it’s Made
- First and foremost, assuming you didn’t ask the grocery store employee to do it for you, you’re going to have to kill the lobsters. Schools of thought vary on the most humane way to go about this; however, my rule of thumb is that it can’t feel pain if it doesn’t have a brain stem! So, to make life easy, place the lobster in a freezer for about 20 minutes to sedate it so it doesn’t move around too much (Don’t leave it in too long or the meat will freeze and that’ll ruin the flavour), then take a sharp, heavy knife and insert it quickly and firmly into the carapace between its eyes. Once the deed is done a few times over, you’ll have lobster ready to be taken apart.
- To break lobster apart, twist and pull off the tail and claws, while being mindful of the sharp edges of the carapace. Do this for each lobster.
- Now let’s steam these suckers! Place a steam insert into a large pot and add about an inch of water. Bring to a boil over high heat and add the tails into the steamer/pot. Cover and let it steam for about 2 to 2.5 minutes before removing tails and placing them on your rimmed baking sheet to cool. Once the tails are steamed, do the same with the claws but leave them in for a full 3 minutes. Remove and let the claws cool as well. Make sure to keep the water that was in the bottom of the pot, it’s going to come into play a little later.
- Once the lobster has cooled enough that you can touch it safely, remove the meat from the claws and tails using shears, shell crackers or whatever other blunt and/or sharp object you can safely use to obliterate the shells and reach that sweet lobster meat inside. Once you’ve successfully extracted the meat, slice it into 1 inch piece, cover it and set it on a plate in the fridge. DO NOT THROW OUT THE SHELLS OR THE REST OF THE LOBSTER. We went through this much effort for the sake of our soup and we’re not going to waste a single scrap of these delicious fellas.
- We’re going to use a large butcher knife to cut the lobster body into chunks. You don’t need to worry about being fancy and yes, the inside of a lobster looks gnarly. Just roll with it. Preserve any lobster juices that accumulate.
- In a pot we’re going to combine our infused butter and infused oil in a large stock pot or dutch oven. Slap it on the stove top and apply medium heat until the butter/oil is practically bubbling. Then line the bottom of the pot with a layer made up of the chunks of lobster body you just disassembled. Do it in batches to avoid crowding the pot. Cook for 5-6 minutes while stirring the bodies around to make sure nothing scorches too heavily to the bottom of the pot. Now add the rest of the lobster body to the pot and keep stirring until the shells of the lobster have turned bright red and the bottom layer is starting to brown.
- Now let’s add our carrot, celery, onion and garlic to the pot and let that cook while stirring for a minute or so, until the vegetables start to soften. Add the tomato paste and cook it for a minute to remove any bitterness.
- Add your brandy/sherry to the mix and cook while continuing to stir until the alcohol smell has dissipated. Now add the white wine and simmer, cooking again until you can’t smell the alcohol.
- Remember that lobster water I told you to save? Well, it’s time to toss it into the pot alongside any of the lobster juice that you set aside. Toss your chicken stock in as well. If the amount of liquid in the pot doesn’t completely cover the shells, add some water until they are submerged. Now toss in your bay leaf and parsley.
- Now let’s reduce our heat down to medium and let it simmer while covered for about 1 hour.
- Take a break and have a glass of wine/water/whatever you enjoy. You deserve it!
- Now that it’s simmered for an hour, let’s strain out the lobster stock we just made! Using a mesh strainer, extract the stock from the solid materials in the pot, making sure to press down on the shells to get all of the butter and juice out of them. Once the stock is extracted, set aside about 2 cups of the cooked vegetables that were in the pot, making sure to avoid any shell bits.
- Put the lobster stock and the 2 cups of vegetables in your blender. Add your cream and begin blending slowly at first but with a gradual increase in speed as the concoction smooths. Repeat this process if necessary until you’ve used all of your lobster stock.
- Now strain your soup through a fine mesh strainer and into a clean pot to remove any potential shell bits that smuggled themselves into the blender. Repeat this process as much as necessary until you feel that no potential sharp pointy bits remain in your soup.
- Place the pot of soup onto your stovetop and heat it up low and slow to avoid curdling the cream or burning the stock we just spent so much time on. Add salt and pepper as well as cayenne pepper. There is no exact science on how much is required, just add enough according to your preference.
- When you’re ready to serve the fruits of your labour, melt the extra butter in a clean pan on medium heat and toss in our lobster meat. Stir and cook the meat for around 2 minutes at most, you want to avoid overcooking lobster meat as it basically turns into rubber. Not pleasant. Season the lobster with salt and pepper.
- Pour that soup broth into your serving bowls and add lobster meat and a bit of extra butter (I did warn you) into each bowl. Garnish however you like, I tend to add a bit of minced parsley and pepper.
We did it! That’s the arduous but rewarding process for making your very own cannabis infused lobster bisque from scratch. Not only will it wow and amaze your friends and family, but it will also get them stoned as heck. For real, I made this at home and was so fried I thought my tv remote was the control for a massage chair I don’t even own. So, remember to enjoy it responsibly!
Till next time folks!
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