I love soup. Any kind of soup. If I can eat it with a spoon, it must be good. One of my all-time favorites is lobster bisque, which I have not yet attempted at home. I’m a bit scared of spoiling all my wonderful lobster bisque memories by butchering it. Shrimp, on the other hand, I’m willing to attempt unsupervised. My Food Lover’s Companion
tells me that a bisque is a thick, rich soup usually consisting of pureed seafood and cream. Here’s a super fast recipe for shrimp and crab bisque that I adapted from this recipe from Allrecipes.com. Since the seafood is not pureed it might not technically be a bisque, but who cares. It’s delicious and perfect for a tired winter weeknight.
KKF Quick Shrimp & Crab Bisque
2-3 T butter (3 if you like your bisque thicker)
2-3 T AP flour or arrowroot flour (same amount of butter that you use)
1/2 t salt
1/4 t white pepper
1 1/2 c half-and-half (in a pinch I’ve used 3/4 c heavy cream and 3/4 c water when I was out of half-and-half)
1 6 oz. can of crab meat (I use Crown Prince Fancy White-Lump Crab
)
2 4 oz. cans of shrimp (I use Wild Planet Wild Pink Shrimp
)
1/2 c white wine (I use a chardonnay for this recipe)
Old Bay seasoning to taste
It’s too easy: Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in flour, salt, pepper. Slowly whisk in the wine followed by the half and half, making sure to get in the corners of your saucepan and get all the roux absorbed. Drain and stir in the shrimp and crab. Heat through. Stir in some Old Bay seasoning. Taste. Add more if you want. Eat.
This bisque is super delicious and faster than ordering MSG laden Chinese take-out. Keep some of this handy canned seafood on hand for your emergency food storage AND emergency dinner supply. I have not yet tried this with canned salmon, but I’ll bet it would work just fine. Maybe some day I’ll be brazen (or foolish) enough to try a lobster bisque…
kitchenkungfu.net 
Am going to make the bisque this week – did you add the wine with the roux or at the end of cooking? Just asking !! \o/\o/
With the roux! Thanks for bringing that up, I’ll make the correction 🙂
Follow up: if using arrowroot as the thickener, melt the butter, add the seafood and seasoning, then use about 1 1/2 tsp of the arrowroot and sprinkle it over the shrimp and crab. Then stir in the liquids.