Suprême d’Écrevisses au Champagne

Ingredients

• 40 crayfish
• mirepoix
• 1/2 bottle dry champagne
• 150 grammes butter
• 3/4 litre velouté
• gelatine
• 1/2 litre cream
• chervil
• truffle
• amber jelly

Instructions

1. Sauté 40 live crayfish in a well-seasoned Mirepoix, moisten with half a bottle of dry Champagne, and finish cooking them covered.
2. Shell the tails as soon as they are cooked, trim them and keep them cool.
3. Pound the shells very finely with 150 grammes of butter and add them to three quarters of a litre of boiling Velouté with 4 or 5 leaves of gelatine.
4. Add the cooking liquor passed through a fine strainer and boil a moment, so the debris release their aroma into the sauce.
5. Pass through the tammy into a glazed terrine set on ice.
6. Stir with a whisk and, as soon as it begins to set, fold in half a litre of half-whipped cream.
7. Pour into a silver or porcelain timbale, filling it only two thirds, and set on ice.
8. Once set, decorate with the reserved tails, chervil pluches and details of truffle.
9. Cover with a light coat of amber jelly and leave on ice until the last moment.
10. Serve set into a block of carved ice, or in a double base filled with crushed ice.