Recipe below: Tagliatelle with Shrimp, Rosemary, and Ginger
I love my Southern Italian Mediterranean food. Those are the flavors of my life that I was exposed to at an early age and have been cooking with for decades. There is, however, a frustration spot. Spices. Modern Italian cooking uses very few of them. There’s not much left from the old Spice Route days. Black pepper is still used, a lot (maybe too much), and nutmeg and cinnamon are both still found in Southern Italy in sweet and savory dishes such as my grandfather’s Christmas Eve ricotta-and-cinnamon-filled ravioli. There’s also saffron, one of my favorite spices. But that’s about it, even if I travel north into Tuscany or Emilia Romania. Herbs have replaced a lot of spiciness over the years. I couldn’t cook without herbs, but I need spices too. And I sneak them in here and there, trying to do so without pushing my flavors beyond recognizable contemporary Italian style.
One of my Italian culinary projects is to poke around to find dishes where spices are still used. I have found good spice in some Sicilian dishes, such as couscous, where the Moorish influence is obvious in the presence of cinnamon, saffron, and bay leaf. I’ve also hunted around in Venetian cooking, as Venice was the hub of the Italian spice trade, I figured they’d have some spice lurking around, ginger, maybe, or clove or star anise.
I often start my research in my ridiculously large cookbook collection that I’ve accumulated over 40 years. I’ve got good books, some quite dusty, others really new. I keep adding, and I almost never get rid of anything. Recently I pulled out The da Fiore Cookbook, with recipes from that famous Venetian restaurant. I’ve often drawn inspiration from many of its fish dishes, and I still find them fresh and unusual even after many years (the book came out in 2003). Mara Martin, the chef there, got the idea for one of her sweet and sour (“saor”) fish dishes from a fourteenth-century Venetian cookbook that included ginger in its old preparation for preserving fish. She even called this dish saor alla Marco Polo, because its distinguishing ingredient, ginger, was brought to Venice after the explorer’s travels to China. Ginger isn’t used much in any region of Italy these days, but it’s such a compelling addition to seafood, I knew I’d have to try it in my own Italian way. I thought immediately of rosemary and how its flavor and ginger’s have always seemed similar to me. Both are sharp, ginger being more biting and rosemary having that distinct strong pine burn on the tongue. Both seasonings, in fact, give you a nice little tongue burn.
So here you have my shrimp pasta with rosemary and ginger, to my culinary mind a truly legitimate Italian dish, with flavors from long ago but made contemporary. I hope you’ll try it.
Tagliatelle with Shrimp, Rosemary, and Ginger
Extra-virgin olive oil
1½ pounds wild-caught large shrimp, peeled and the peels saved
½ cup dry vermouth (I really like Dolin)
Salt
Black pepper
A big pinch of sugar
1 ¼-inch-thick round of pancetta, cut into small dice
1 large shallot, cut into small dice
1 nob of fresh ginger, grated (you’ll want about a tablespoon)
3 long sprigs rosemary, the leaves well chopped
2 pints grape tomatoes
1 pound fresh tagliatelle
5 or so large sprigs Italian parsley, lightly chopped
A small hunk of grana Padano cheese
The first thing you want to do is make a quick shrimp broth. It will add so much flavor to a pasta dish like this. So get out a small saucepan, and set it over medium heat. Drizzle in about a tablespoon or so of olive oil. When it’s hot, add the shrimp shells and sauté them until they turn pink, about 3 minutes. Add the vermouth, and let it bubble for a few seconds. Add 2 cups of water and bring everything to a boil. Turn the heat down a touch, and cook, uncovered, at a low bubble for about 10 minutes. It should start smelling very sweet and shrimpy. Add a little salt and strain the broth into a small bowl. You should have about a cup or so.
Put the peeled shrimp in a small bowl and drizzle on a little olive oil. Season with salt, black pepper, and the sugar, and give it a quick toss.
Set up a pot of pasta cooking water, and bring it to a boil. Add a good amount of salt.
In the meantime, get out a large skillet, and set it over medium heat. Add a little olive oil and the pancetta, and sauté until the pancetta is crisp. Add the shallot, ginger, and half the rosemary, and sauté to release their flavors. Add the tomatoes, and season with salt and black pepper. Cook the tomatoes until they just start to burst but still more or less hold their shape, about 5 or 6 minutes. Then add the shrimp broth, turn the heat down a bit, and let everything simmer for a few minutes to blend the flavors.
Drop the tagliatelle in the water.
Turn the heat off under the sauce.
Pull out a medium-size skillet, and get it hot over high heat. Add the shrimp, and sear it quickly on both sides, leaving it juicy and tender. This should take only about 2 minutes. Add the shrimp to the sauce, along with any skillet juices.
When the tagliatelle is tender, drain it, and tilt it into a large serving bowl. Add the shrimp sauce, the rest of the rosemary, and the parsley. Toss gently. Grate on about a tablespoon or so of grana Padano, and toss again lightly. Taste for seasoning. Serve hot, passing the rest of the cheese at the table if you like.