She-Crab Soup

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1 small onion
• 1 celery rib
• 4 tbsp plain flour
• 2 cups fish or shellfish stock
• 2 cups whole milk
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 lb lump blue crab meat
• 3 tbsp crab roe, or 2 hard-boiled egg yolks as a substitute
• 1/4 tsp ground mace
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• Zest of 1/2 lemon
• 1 tsp fine salt
• 1/4 tsp white pepper
• 6 tbsp dry sherry
• 2 tbsp chopped chives

Before you cook

• Pick through the crab meat with your fingers and remove any fragments of shell, keeping the lumps whole.
• Peel the onion and mince it very finely.
• Mince the celery very finely.
• Push the crab roe through a fine sieve, or if you are using hard-boiled yolks, push those through instead.
• Grate the lemon zest.
• Chop the chives.
• Measure the stock, milk and cream into separate jugs.

Steps

1. Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan over medium-low heat.
2. Add the onion and celery and sweat them for 6 minutes, stirring, until soft but with no colour.
3. Sprinkle in the flour and stir constantly for 3 minutes to cook out the raw taste, keeping it pale.
4. Pour in the stock a splash at a time, whisking after each addition so no lumps form.
5. Whisk in the milk and the cream and bring the pan to a gentle simmer.
6. Cook the soup at a bare simmer for 12 minutes, stirring often, until it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.
7. Stir in the mace, Worcestershire sauce, lemon zest, salt and white pepper.
8. Add the sieved crab roe and stir it through until the soup takes on a pale coral colour.
9. Fold in the crab meat as gently as you can, keeping the lumps intact.
10. Warm the soup for 4 minutes without letting it boil, or the cream will split and the crab will toughen.
11. Taste and add more salt if it needs it.
12. Ladle the soup into warm bowls.
13. Pour a tablespoon of dry sherry into each bowl at the table and scatter the chives over the top.