Partan Bree (Scottish Crab Soup)
This hearty soup is a traditional Scottish dish. ‘Partan’ means ‘crab’ and ‘bree’ means ‘gravy’.
Serves 6 as an entrée
⅓ cup long grain rice
600ml milk
400ml chicken stock
500g cooked crab meat (see notes)
2 anchovy fillets (see notes)
Pinch ground cayenne pepper
Pinch grated nutmeg
150ml cream
Salt flakes and freshly ground white pepper, to taste
Sprinkling paprika, to serve
2 tablespoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
Place rice and milk in a small saucepan, bring just to the boil, reduce heat and simmer over a low heat, covered, for about 20 minutes, until rice is tender.
Meanwhile, bring stock to the boil.
Reserve some of the best looking pieces of crab meat for garnish. Place remaining crab meat in a sieve and press gently to extract excess moisture. Blend rice, milk, anchovy fillets and pressed crab meat in a blender until very smooth. Add blended mixture to stock and combine well using a stick blender. Add cayenne, nutmeg and cream and simmer for a minute or 2. Taste and add salt and pepper.
Serve into warmed bowls and garnish with paprika, parsley and reserved crab meat.
Notes: Pick meat from 2 x 1kg cooked mud crab or 4 x 350g cooked blue swimmer crabs or 4 x 500g spanner crabs, or buy good quality frozen Australian crab meat such as Ceas (Queensland spanner crabs) or Abacus (Western Australian blue swimmer crabs). Be aware that most other frozen crab meat is imported and can be quite watery when thawed. If available, use Ortiz brand anchovy fillets as they have a much better flavour and are less salty.
For information on Crabs, click here >
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