Hi everyone!
I have a question, recently moved to a restaurant that serves quite a bit of lobster bisque, taste is acceptable at this point but color is brownishly muddy, none of that vibrant color chacteristic of lobster. Stock is done with roasted shells (not burnt, just nice and red), mirepoix, fennel, dill, white wine and some tomato paste. We bring it to boil, simmer for 1 h, sieve, reduce to 1/4. Final prepp is bring stock to boil, add cognac, cream&milk and simmer a bit to lose alcohol.
Did some reading here and elsewhere online, way we do stock seems pretty standard, yet no comments anywhere on color being dull and uninteresting. Tried roasting shells longer, boiling stock longer, reducing more but to no avail. The only thing that works is adding more tomato paste, but you can only push that so far. Tried adding more carrot to mirepoix, but it's easy to push it too far and no color effect really.
Old school pulverizing the shells is not an option due to technical reasons. Been experimenting with sauteing shells in butter to bind color to it, works well and butter gets a nice orange color. I must admit I didn't hear of anyone mounting bisque with lobster butter to get the color right.
Spoke to some other chefs that serve lobster bisque, they mostly admit to adding artificial colors and/or factory made lobster stock to improve on the color, which is roughly the same thing. Saffron is also not an option right now due to its price.
Any experiences or ideas?
Of course I don't expect it to be thai red curry red, but pale orange would be a big improvement. Also we add lobster tomalley and roe (we have plenty of it spare) when making stock for the flavor, it does make it slightly greener, but I tried leaving it out and it doesn't solve the problem.
Sorry for the long post and thank you all for the suggestions!
I have a question, recently moved to a restaurant that serves quite a bit of lobster bisque, taste is acceptable at this point but color is brownishly muddy, none of that vibrant color chacteristic of lobster. Stock is done with roasted shells (not burnt, just nice and red), mirepoix, fennel, dill, white wine and some tomato paste. We bring it to boil, simmer for 1 h, sieve, reduce to 1/4. Final prepp is bring stock to boil, add cognac, cream&milk and simmer a bit to lose alcohol.
Did some reading here and elsewhere online, way we do stock seems pretty standard, yet no comments anywhere on color being dull and uninteresting. Tried roasting shells longer, boiling stock longer, reducing more but to no avail. The only thing that works is adding more tomato paste, but you can only push that so far. Tried adding more carrot to mirepoix, but it's easy to push it too far and no color effect really.
Old school pulverizing the shells is not an option due to technical reasons. Been experimenting with sauteing shells in butter to bind color to it, works well and butter gets a nice orange color. I must admit I didn't hear of anyone mounting bisque with lobster butter to get the color right.
Spoke to some other chefs that serve lobster bisque, they mostly admit to adding artificial colors and/or factory made lobster stock to improve on the color, which is roughly the same thing. Saffron is also not an option right now due to its price.
Any experiences or ideas?
Of course I don't expect it to be thai red curry red, but pale orange would be a big improvement. Also we add lobster tomalley and roe (we have plenty of it spare) when making stock for the flavor, it does make it slightly greener, but I tried leaving it out and it doesn't solve the problem.
Sorry for the long post and thank you all for the suggestions!