Spatula Diaries: A New Year’s Eve take on Emeril’s corn and crab bisque

There are two kinds of New Year’s Eve participants: those who go out and those who stay home.

If you’re in the latter camp, there’s a good chance you’re looking for something special to serve this Thursday evening—something that screams romance, friendship, family or final decadence before the resolutions come home to roost.

I’m here to recommend one my all-time favorite soups, corn and crab bisque. Done right, with its perfect balance of dairy and stock, its tender corn and succulent jumbo lump crabmeat, this particular soup delivers elegance in a way that others don’t. I’ve served it as a main course and as a starter, and each time I’ve placed it on the table, its earned rave reviews.

The recipe I use is found in Emeril’s New New Orleans Cooking, a cookbook published in 1993 by Chef Emeril Lagasse shortly after he’d opened Emeril’s in New Orleans, and well before the weight gain, the Food Network and Bravo appearances and the explosion of his national restaurants. In today’s fleeting world of food media, a cookbook published that long ago (especially one without pictures) seems irrelevant. But some cookbooks earn the right to be dog-eared and dirty from use, and this is definitely one of them.

Close versions of the recipe are available online, including this one on Emeril’s website. Note: Definitely use the teaspoon of liquid crab boil, which he has updated as “optional.” If you do that, you probably won’t need the cayenne pepper. I also always use a full 16 ounces or one pound of crabmeat in the recipe, instead of a half pound, as he recommends. And, I only use fresh, not frozen, jumbo lump crabmeat. It makes all the difference.

To younger foodies, Emeril might seem overly commercial or even outdated. I disagree. I had a chance to hear him speak and taste some of his creations at a gala during the Association of Food Journalists conference this fall in Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida. He’s got a strong base of activity in Florida, and he’d engineered an incredible event at the St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts, during which talented regional chefs developed amazing dishes using Florida’s relentless bounty of local meats, seafood, produce and products.

Happy New Year!

Maggie Heyn Richardson is a regular 225 contributor and the author of Hungry for Louisiana, An Omnivore’s Journey. Reach her at hungryforlouisiana.com.