Luxurious Lobster Bisque

A delicious new recipe and thoughts on the fine art of soupmaking from the queen of soups herself.

About four thousand times a week I am asked, “When are you going to open another restaurant?” To which I reply, “I’m not.” This response is always followed by noises of disappointment and frustration: “I miss the potato soup! Oh, I miss Chicken Curry Day! I miss the bread pudding!”

I miss having a forum and a creative kitchen lab. I miss making and eating soup every day, and I miss talking to my customers and making new friends. I also miss the steady cash flow.

When I closed Tanya’s Soup Kitchen two years ago (a cable company wanted my building for a customer service center, but the space stands empty to this day), I was nearly despondent. My customers were also upset, and rightly so—they had come to love my soups, my servers and, by default, me. We all experienced the loss of Tanya’s Soup Kitchen. The only people who are happy that plans for a new shop are not in the future are my family and friends, who have grown accustomed to seeing me at meals, on holidays, on weekends, at night and at home.

Everybody had their favorite soup. Monday was chicken noodle on mashed potatoes, comfort food for downtowners on the hardest day of the week. Wednesday was  tomato dill and chicken curry with chutney, the two most popular girls on the soup squad. Friday we had fish soups, bisques and chowders. Saturday always brought the chicken tortilla, universally beloved.

Every day we made four soups, always including a vegan selection. We served endless variations of tomato and potato soups (I could have called the shop the Potato Soup Kitchen and still been a success), so many that I have lost count. In seven years, we made  over ten thousand batches of soup—about 200,000 gallons, give or take a few thousand.

Every soup was not perfect, and I made lots of mistakes. Some mishaps evolved into new soups—a case of overcooked artichokes became a lemony artichoke bisque—but some were downright nasty and had to be thrown away. I scorched lots of beans and burned hundreds of pounds of rice. Soups with dumplings never turned out well. I disgraced my Aunt Nedra with my rock-like matzoh balls.

Unfamiliar ingredients were not well-liked by customers, and experiments with tofu and tempeh (a soybean product) were complete failures. Curries were hit or miss, depending on the day. Beets were usually the kiss of death for soup sales, as were turnips and cabbage. Wichitans had to be convinced that cold soups and fruit soups were not going to poison them (I gave out free samples every day one summer), and that it was indeed possible to enjoy chili made of ingredients other than ground beef and kidney beans.

It was fun, hectic, torturously hard work, but extremely gratifying and addictive. I still love to make soup, to think about making soup, to eat soup. I love choosing ingredients, the meditative practice of chopping vegetables, the quiet aromatherapy of
stock-making. I love the gentle alchemy of simmering, the blending of flavors and subtle thickening that occurs when soups are cooked for hours. I love to serve soup, to see how people respond to my work, and to watch them eat. Usually, they are smiling.

I can’t choose a favorite soup for myself—it would be like trying to choose a favorite child. I do have a few that I love maybe just a little bit more than the others, for purely emotional reasons. I love best the soups my mother makes for me, and the soups my family asks for. However, if I had to choose between eating one soup forever or eating no soup at all, I would have to pick lobster bisque. I always find it interesting and extremely, appropriately luxurious.

Here is my recipe for lobster bisque, created for a dear friend. It’s not easy, but it is wonderful.

Recipe: Lobster Bisque Pat Hysko

2 live lobsters
1 gallon water
4 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. flour
1 large leek, white part only, cleaned and chopped
1 stalk celery, minced
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. dried thyme
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 cup dry sherry
2 tbsp. tomato paste
3 cups dry white wine
2 bay leaves
2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
Salt and cayenne pepper to taste
Juice and zest of one lemon

Heat the water in a large stock pot until boiling. Drop in the lobsters and cook 12-15 minutes, until bright red. Remove 4 cups of the lobster water and reserve, then drain lobsters and set aside to cool. Once the lobster is cool, crack the shells and remove the lobster meat. Dice the meat and reserve the shells. Try not to eat all of the meat before the soup is done.

In another large pot, heat the butter and add the flour. Cook the flour until the mixture is a light golden color. Add the leeks, celery, carrot, garlic, thyme and nutmeg. Cook and stir on medium heat until leeks are transparent. Add the sherry, tomato paste and white wine. Whisk to mix well. Add the lobster shells, bay leaves, milk, reserved lobster broth and cream. Bring to a boil and simmer 30 minutes.

With a potato masher, mash and press the lobster shells into the soup as it cooks. Strain the soup through a fine mesh strainer into another pot. Add the lobster meat just before serving and heat through. Season with salt, cayenne, lemon zest and juice. Serve immediately.

The former owner of Wichita’s beloved Tanya’s Soup Kitchen, Tanya Tandoc keeps a full schedule of activities, running between cello practice at two area symphonies, acting as a food consultant, teaching cooking classes, and throwing clay pots at Wichita State University, where she’s working on an art degree. She and her husband, Wayne, live in the downtown area with their son, Evan.