Langoustines Meunière With Bordier Lemon-Olive Oil Butter

Ten langoustines, one block of Bordier Lemon-Olive Oil Butter, and a bisque built from the parts most cooks throw away. This is a restaurant plate scaled to a home kitchen: sweet langoustine tails cooked meunière style in foaming butter, a carrot purée whipped to a foam at the last second, glazed baby vegetables, and a shellfish bisque strained until it runs clear. It serves two. Most of the hour is the bisque simmering on its own, so the active work is shorter than the ingredient list suggests.

Why this works

Bordier made the Lemon-Olive Oil butter in 2009 for a chef who wanted the two fats in one place. It is butter blended with lemon-infused extra-virgin olive oil, and the olive oil does something useful here that a plain butter cannot: it thins the emulsion slightly, so the butter foams a little longer before it browns. That extra window is exactly what meunière cooking needs. Langoustine tails are done in roughly a minute per side, and you spend that minute tipping the pan and spooning foaming butter over them.

The lemon is the other half of the argument. Shellfish bisque is rich, cream-heavy, and can flatten out on the palate. Acid cuts it. Rather than squeezing a lemon over the finished plate, which waters the sauce and lands unevenly, the acidity arrives already emulsified into the fat. The same 60 g block seasons the carrot purée, finishes the bisque, glazes the vegetables, and cooks the shellfish. Four jobs, one butter, one flavor running through the whole plate.

Ingredients

Buy the langoustines whole and raw. The heads and shells are not optional here, they are the bisque.

Ingredient	Metric	US
Raw langoustines	10	10
Bordier Lemon-Olive Oil Butter	60 g	2 oz
Sand-grown carrots	6	6
Carrot juice	5 cl	About 3½ tbsp
Tiny early vegetables	As needed	As needed
White wine, or cognac or armagnac	1 small glass	1 small glass
Celery	½ branch	½ stalk
Shallot	1	1
Whipping or single cream	20 cl	6¾ fl oz, about ¾ cup plus 1 tbsp
Smoked paprika	1 tsp	1 tsp
Tomato paste	2 tbsp	2 tbsp
Salt and pepper	To taste	To taste

Method

Step 1: Purée the carrots and start the bisque

Put the carrots in a pot, cover with water, add a knob of butter, and cook until soft. Purée them, then work in 15 g (3 tsp) of the Bordier butter and the carrot juice. Meanwhile, shell the langoustines and leave only the tails intact. Keep the shells and heads. Blanch the carrots, onions, leeks, and celery, then brown them lightly. Add the langoustine shells and brown further. Crush the heads with a pestle and add them to the pan.

Step 2: Simmer, strain, and glaze the vegetables

Deglaze with the glass of alcohol. Stir in 2 tbsp tomato paste and cover with hot water or stock. Put the lid on and let it bubble for about 30 minutes. Strain it several times, first through a chinois and then through a fine-mesh sieve. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Off the heat, add 10 g (2 tsp) of the butter and the cream, then hold it somewhere warm. Prepare the tiny vegetables. Melt 20 g (4 tsp) of the butter with a drop of water over low heat and glaze the vegetables in it. They should stay firm but tender.

Step 3: Cook the langoustines and foam the carrot

Heat the remaining 15 g (3 tsp) of butter in a pan until it foams. Cook the langoustines about 1 minute per side, until they turn pearly, basting constantly with the foaming butter. Just before serving, blend the carrot purée with a stick blender to raise a foam and spoon a little onto each plate.

Tips from our kitchen

• The 60 g splits four ways. Bordier's method uses 15 g in the purée, 10 g in the finished bisque, 20 g for glazing the vegetables, and 15 g for the langoustines. That accounts for the whole block exactly. Weigh the four portions out before you start and you will not run short at the pan.
• Bordier's method names vegetables the ingredient list does not. Step 1 calls for onions and leeks in the bisque base, but neither appears in the ingredient list, which has celery and a shallot. Follow the ingredient list: the shallot and the celery are enough to build the base. If you happen to have a leek and a small onion, adding them is traditional and will not hurt. That is our guidance, not Bordier's.
• Foaming butter, not brown butter. Meunière depends on catching the butter while it is still pale and bubbling hard. The moment the foam collapses and the solids turn nutty brown, the langoustines will taste toasted rather than sweet. Medium heat, and get the tails in as soon as the bubbling picks up.
• Do not skip the second straining. Langoustine shells carry sand. A chinois catches the solids, but only a fine-mesh sieve or a coffee filter catches the grit. A gritty bisque is unrecoverable.
• Langoustines are hard to find in the US. Whole raw langoustines, sometimes sold as Norway lobster or scampi, turn up frozen at good fishmongers. Large head-on shrimp are the practical substitute and will give you shells and heads for the bisque. Cook time stays about the same.
• Add the butter to the bisque off the heat. Boiling after the butter goes in will break the emulsion and leave a slick on the surface. Pull the pot off, whisk the butter in, then hold it warm rather than hot.

How to serve it

Two people, two plates, and nothing else on the table but bread and a cold bottle of Muscadet or Chablis. The bisque foam wants a spoon, so serve it in shallow bowls rather than flat plates. If you are building a longer French menu around it, our guide to Bordier butter covers which of the flavored butters belong at which course.

Where to buy Bordier Lemon-Olive Oil Butter in the US

The French Pantry ships Bordier butter across the United States in insulated overnight packaging, straight from the workshop in Brittany.

• Churned Lemon-Olive Oil Butter by Bordier (4.4 oz): butter blended with lemon-infused extra-virgin olive oil, made in 2009 for a chef who wanted both fats at once.

For the rest of the range, including the Seaweed and Espelette butters that also work with shellfish, browse the Maison Bordier collection.

Frequently asked questions

How much Bordier butter do I need for this recipe?

One block. Bordier blocks are 4.4 oz (125 g) and the recipe calls for 60 g (2 oz), so a single block covers it with more than half left over. If you plan to double the recipe for four, buy two blocks.

Can I use a different Bordier butter?

Yes. Seaweed butter is the closest match in spirit and pushes the plate further toward the coast. Salted butter works too, but add a squeeze of lemon at the end to replace the acidity you lose.

Can I substitute regular butter and lemon?

You can, but you will not get the same result. Whisking lemon juice into plain butter breaks it, and adding the juice at the end waters the sauce. The Bordier version carries the lemon in the fat, which is why it holds together.

How should I store the butter?

Keep it in the refrigerator, wrapped, and use it within the date on the pack. It freezes well for up to three months if you wrap it tightly, though the texture is best fresh.

Does Bordier butter need to be refrigerated?

Yes. Bordier butter is a fresh, hand-churned product and ships cold. Move it to the refrigerator as soon as it arrives, and take out only what you need for the recipe.

Do I have to make the bisque?

The bisque is what makes this dish worth the effort, and it costs you nothing extra since it uses the shells and heads. If you are short on time, a good fish stock reduced with tomato paste and finished with cream and butter will get you close.

Related reading

• Bordier Butter: What It Is, Why Chefs Love It, and How to Use It
• How to Choose Your French Butter: A Buyer's Guide
• La Brújula Spanish Conservas

Recipe and photograph adapted from Maison Bordier, with thanks. The French Pantry is an authorized US retailer of Bordier butter.