Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan [35]
1. Wash the shrimp. Bring water to a boil, add salt, and as it returns to a boil, put in the shrimp in their shells with 1 tablespoon of the vinegar. Cook for 4 minutes, less if the shrimp are small, then drain. When cool enough to handle, shell, and devein. Set the shrimp aside.
2. Snap both ends off the green beans and wash them in cold water. Bring water to a boil, add salt, drop in the beans, and drain them as soon as they are tender, but still firm.
3. Wash the potatoes with their skins on, put them in a pot with enough water to cover amply, bring to a boil, and cook until they are easily pierced with a fork. Drain and peel while still hot.
4. Peel the carrots, and cook them exactly as you cooked the beans, until tender, but still firm.
5. Drop the peas into salted, boiling water and cook not much longer than 1 minute. Drain and set aside.
6. Pat the beets as dry as possible with paper towels. When the cooked vegetables have cooled off, set aside a small quantity of each, including the beets but excepting the potatoes, which you will use later for the garnish. Cut up the rest as follows: the green beans into ⅜-inch lengths; the potatoes, carrots, and beets diced into ⅜-inch cubes. Put all the cut-up and diced vegetables, including the capers and cucumber pickles, in a mixing bowl.
7. Set aside half the shrimp. Dice the rest and add them to the bowl with the vegetables. Add the olive oil, 2 teaspoons wine vinegar, and salt and toss thoroughly. Add half the mayonnaise, and fold it into the mixture, distributing it evenly to coat the ingredients well. Taste and correct for salt.
8. Turn the contents of the bowl over onto a serving platter, preferably round. Shape it into a shallow, flat-topped, oval mound, pressing it with a rubber spatula to even it off and make the surface smooth. Spread the remaining mayonnaise over the mound, covering the entire surface and using the spatula to make it smooth.
9. Use the reserved vegetables and shrimp to decorate the mound in any way that you find attractive. One suggestion: Place a thin carrot disk on the center of the mound, and a pea in the center of the carrot. Use some of the shrimp to make a circle around the carrot, placing them on their side, nestling the tail of one over the head of the other. Over the rest of the mound scatter flowers, using carrots for the center button, beets for the petals, and green beans for the stems. Decorate the sides of the mound with the remaining shrimp, imbedding their bellies in the salad, heads toward the top, tails toward the bottom, backs arching away.
Note Here is one of the uncommon occasions when the snappy flavor of good olive oil in mayonnaise is more desirable than the mildness of vegetable oil. Its density is also useful in pulling together the ingredients of the salad, making it more compact.
Ahead-of-time note You can make the salad up to 2 days in advance, refrigerating it under plastic wrap, but take it out in sufficient time to be able to serve it not too much colder than room temperature. Caution: If you are preparing the dish several hours or even a day in advance, use the beets in your decorative pattern at the last moment because their color tends to run.
Salmon Foam
LONG BEFORE the Norwegians raised salmon on farms and made it a commonplace ingredient in Italian markets, where it now costs far less than locally caught fish, it was better known to Italians in its canned form. Just as they have succeeded in elevating the status of canned tuna, Italian cooks produce excellent things with canned salmon, of which the recipe given here is one of the best examples.
For 6 servings
15 ounces canned salmon
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
Salt
Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill
1½ cups very cold heavy whipping cream
1. Drain the salmon and look it over carefully, picking out any bones and bits of skin. Using a fork, crumble it in a mixing bowl. Add the oil, lemon juice, a pinch of salt, and a few grindings of pepper, and beat them with the