Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan [137]
Note Freshness is essential to the fragrance of salmoriglio sauce. Do not prepare it long in advance. It is so simple and quick to do that you can make it while the grill is warming up.
Grilled Shrimp Skewers
THERE IS no other way I have ever come across that produces grilled shrimp as juicy as these. The coating of olive oil-soaked bread crumbs is what does it. When preparing it, bear in mind that there should be enough oil to film the shrimp, but not so much to drench them, enough bread crumbs to absorb oil and keep it from running, but not so much to bread them and form a thick crust.
For 4 to 6 servings
2 pounds medium shrimp, unshelled weight
3½ tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3½ tablespoons vegetable oil
⅔ cup fine, dry, unflavored bread crumbs
½ teaspoon garlic chopped very fine
2 teaspoons parsley chopped very fine
Salt
Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill
Skewers
OPTIONAL: a charcoal grill
1. Shell the shrimp and remove their dark vein. Wash in cold water and pat thoroughly dry with cloth kitchen towels.
2. Put the shrimp in a roomy bowl. Add as much of the olive and vegetable oil, in equal parts, and of the bread crumbs as you need to coat the shrimp evenly, but lightly all over. You may not require all the oil indicated in the ingredients list, but if you have a large number of very small shrimp you may need even more. When you increase the quantity, use olive and vegetable oil in equal parts.
3. Add the chopped garlic, parsley, salt, and pepper, and toss thoroughly to coat the shrimp well. Allow them to steep in their coating a minimum of 20 to 30 minutes, or up to 2 hours, at room temperature.
4. Preheat the broiler at least 15 minutes before you are ready to cook, or light the charcoal in time for it to form white ash before cooking.
5. Skewer the shrimp tightly, curling one end of each shrimp inward so that the skewer goes through at three points, preventing the shrimp from slipping as you turn the skewer on the grill.
6. Cook the shrimp briefly, close to the source of heat. Depending on their size and the intensity of the fire, about 2 minutes on one side and 1½ on the other, just until they form a thin, golden crust. Serve piping hot.
Grilled Shrimp, Cannocchie Style
THE PRAWN-LIKE crustaceans with a broad, flat body and mantis-like front claws that Italians call cannocchie, are found in the Adriatic, and nowhere else in the Western Hemisphere to my knowledge. (A closely related variety is caught off the coast of Japan, where it is known as shako.) The exceptionally tender, sweet, and salty flesh resembles that of no other shellfish. Restaurants in Venice serve cannocchie steamed, shelled, and dressed with olive oil and lemon juice. The name of the dish, cannocchie con olio e limone, is one every visitor to Venice who cares about eating well should memorize before arrival.
The way the fishermen of my town prepare cannocchie is rarely if ever found on a restaurant menu. They split the back of the shell along its whole length, marinate the shrimp in olive oil, bread crumbs, salt, and a prodigal quantity of black pepper, and grill them over very hot charcoal or wood embers. But how they are cooked is only half the story, it’s how you eat them. You pick one up with your fingers, spread the shell open with your lips, and suck in the meat. In Romagna we call it eating col bacio, with a kiss. And a most savory kiss it is, as you lick from the shell its peppery coating of oil-soaked crumbs enriched by the charred flavor of the shell itself.
The shrimp in this recipe is prepared in the manner of cannocchie, and should be eaten in the same lip-smacking style. It’s advisable to serve it with a plentiful supply of paper napkins.
For 4 to 6 servings
2 pounds medium to large unshelled shrimp