The perfect Thanksgiving cocktail . . . that's where we started things Sunday afternoon at our pre-Thanksgiving feast.  This was more than a warm-up for the big day.  This was a full-on Thanksgiving experience, to be enjoyed by friends before heading off to their respective family gatherings this week.

Given the large number of dishes prepared and served at our feast, and the busy day I'm having on the work front, I'm going to break this into two or three installments.  For now, I'll just tackle the event's signature drink and the bisque I prepared.

As noted here, the co-host of this party was planning a simple, inventive concoction of freshly-pressed apple cider and something bubbly from the wine family.  I recommended prosecco and she went with that suggestion.  The result was a smashing success.  It doesn't get much simpler—or much more delicious—than this.  Try it, you'll probably love it.

After grazing on some cheese and crackers, our first sit-down course was a butternut squash & lobster bisque that I made for the first time this weekend.  Unable to find a recipe for the dish I envisioned, I called on my experiences making more simple butternut squash bisques in the past and made some minor modifications to that approach—basically, just making a lobster stock and substituting it for the water usually used in a squash bisque.





I couldn't find any whole lobsters, so I bought three lobster tails, which I boiled in 4 cups of water for 6 or 7 minutes.  I reserved the water I had boiled the lobster tails in, removed the tails from their shells, cut the shells up into 1 inch pieces and browned them in three tablespoons of vegetable oil on med-high heat for about 5 minutes in the same dutch oven I had boiled them in.  I then added 3 shallots, 4 cloves of garlic and a rib of celery roughly chopped and sautéed them until soft, about 4 minutes.  I finished the lobster stock by adding the 4 cups of water I had boiled the lobster tails in to the dutch oven and boiling for 15 minutes, then straining the solids from the liquid.

Moving on to the squash part of the equation, I melted 6 Tbs. butter in the dutch oven and sautéed a chopped shallot together with the seeds and guts from two large butternut squash until the butter turned bright orange, about 5 minutes.


I then returned the lobster stock solids to the pot with 4 cups of water—I figured I could eek a little more lobster flavor out of the shells—some more of that hippy recycling, you might say.  I brought this mixture to a boil and then dropped my steamer basket into the pot and piled the chopped up pieces of my two butternut squash onto the steamer basket and covered the pot to let the squash steam for about 30 minutes.

When the squash was done, I removed it from the pot and placed it on a baking sheet, where I let it cool until I could handle it to peel the skin from the squash meat.  While the squash was cooling, I strained the liquid remaining in the pot from the solids, threw away the solids, and added the liquid to the lobster stock I had made earlier.  I now had about 7 cups of stock.  I removed the skin from the approximately 5 pounds of cooked squash and then pureed the squash together with stock in a blender, adding the squash solids first and then the stock gradually to achieve a smooth, thick texture.  Go easy when adding the stock—you can always as more, but you can never take it back once it's in the mix.  You're looking for whatever consistency you prefer your bisques to be.  You probably won't use all of the stock.  I didn't.

I did all of the steps up until this point the day before our feast.  Then, on arriving at the home of our gracious hosts, I added a cup of heavy cream and 2 Tbs. of brown sugar and reheated the bisque over low-med heat.  I then ladled the bisque into bowls over chopped lobster, added a sprinkling of freshly ground nutmeg and a sprig of parsley.  Done!  Oh yeah, one more thing, the very dry Jean-Baptiste Adam 2006 Alsatian Riesling, pictured above and here, was a perfect match for the bisque—with the minerally (is that a word?) notes of the wine working nicely with the minerally shellfish character of the bisque.

Tomorrow I'll report on the turkey, side dishes and the best dessert of all time . . . complete with pics . . . so stay tuned!