Save this recipe because you will make Marcella Hazan’s delicious Shrimp Skewers again and again! Serve these shrimp with some local sourdough bread, salted butter and a nice salad and you have the perfect meal. And they are FANTASTIC with our 2022 Grenache Blanc. The wine’s acidity is a beautiful companion to the rich shrimp and the fruit flavors of the wine work beautifully with the parsley.
Ingredients:
- 1 tbsp chopped garlic
- 2 pounds medium shrimp, unshelled weight
- 3½ TBSP extra virgin olive oil
- 3½ TBSP vegetable oil
- ⅔ cup fine, dry, unflavored bread crumbs
- ½ tsp garlic chopped very fine
- 2 tsp parsley chopped very fine
- Salt
- Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill
- OPTIONAL: a charcoal grill
Instructions:
Shell the shrimp and remove their dark vein. Wash in cold water and pat thoroughly dry with cloth kitchen towels.
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.
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.
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. 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.
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 I on the other, just until they form a thin, golden crust. Serve piping hot.
“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.” – Marcella Hazan, Essentials of Italian Cooking
Recipe from “Essentials of Italian Cooking ” by Marcella Hazan.
