Italian Carasau Crisp with Red Prawn Tartare, Bottarga and Citrus | Cialda di Pane Carasau, Tartare di Gambero Rosso, Bottarga e Agrumi

Sep 29

11 min read

Cialda di Pane Carasau, Tartare di Gambero Rosso, Bottarga e Agrumi (Italian Carasau Crisp with Red Prawn Tartare, Bottarga and Citrus)

This plate is built on contrast. A sheet of pane carasau, the paper thin Sardinian bread baked twice until it shatters, carries raw Mediterranean red prawns cut by hand, dressed with olive oil and blood orange, and finished with grated mullet bottarga. It is sweet, briny, bright and dry in one bite.

Serves 4 as an appetizer, 12 crisps. Prep: 40 minutes. Chill: 45 minutes for the citrus gel. Bake: 8 minutes. Total: about 1 hour 30 minutes, plus freezing time for the prawns.

The Story

Pane carasau is the bread of the Sardinian interior, and its shape was dictated by the shepherds. Men from the Barbagia and the Nuorese left their villages for months to follow the flocks across the high pastures, and they needed bread that would not spoil, would not crush in a saddlebag and could be softened with water or broth whenever it was wanted. The answer was a dough of fine durum semolina, baked in a wood oven until it puffs into a balloon, split into two sheets and baked again. The name is usually traced to the Sardinian verb for toasting, and the sheets are so thin that the bread is also called carta da musica, music paper.

The prawn comes from a different Sardinia altogether. The red prawn, Aristaeomorpha foliacea, lives in deep water, roughly 1,300 to 2,300 feet (400 to 700 m) down, and it reaches the ports of Cagliari, Alghero and the southwest as a trawl catch that fishermen have always treated as a luxury. Its flesh is soft, sweet and faintly iodine rich, and it is the one prawn in the Mediterranean that tastes better raw than cooked. Eating it raw is a modern restaurant habit in Italy, not an old peasant custom, but it is a habit the fish justifies.

Bottarga ties the two halves together. Salted, pressed and dried mullet roe is the great preserved food of the Sardinian lagoons, above all the Cabras lagoon near Oristano, and the technique is often said to go back to the Phoenicians. Grated over the prawns it does the work of salt and of a savory finish at once. The blood orange stands for the citrus groves of the southeast around Muravera. The dish therefore puts shepherd bread, lagoon roe, deep sea prawn and orchard fruit on one plate, which is a fair summary of the whole island.

The crisp itself has a humble cousin on every Sardinian table, pane guttiau, which is carasau sprinkled with olive oil and salt and warmed until it crackles. It is served with cheese, cured meats and wine at any hour. The cialda here is that snack taken to the restaurant: the same bread, the same oil and salt, but used as an edible plate for the sea. A cook who understands how a shepherd eats guttiau will understand how this dish must be served, which is dry, fast and without ceremony.

Ingredients

For the crisps

Pane carasau sheets, 3 large, about 4 oz (115 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 1 tbsp (15 ml)
Fine sea salt, a pinch
Ice, for chilling the mixing bowl, 4 cups (about 1 kg)

For the tartare

Red prawns, peeled, deveined and previously frozen, 1 lb (450 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, Sardinian, 2 tbsp (30 ml)
Lemon juice, 1 tbsp (15 ml)
Orange zest, finely grated, 1 tsp (2 g)
Shallot, minced, 1 tbsp (10 g)
Fresh chives, minced, 1 tbsp (3 g)
Fine sea salt, 1/4 tsp (1.5 g)
White pepper, a pinch

For the citrus gel

Blood orange juice, strained, 1/2 cup (120 ml)
Lemon juice, 1 tbsp (15 ml)
Sugar, 1 tsp (4 g)
Agar agar powder, 1/2 tsp (1.5 g)
Cold water, 2 tbsp (30 ml)

For finishing

Mullet bottarga, 1 oz (30 g), for grating
Blood orange segments, diced, 2 oranges
Fennel fronds, 12 small sprigs
Flaky sea salt, a pinch
Extra virgin olive oil, for the plate rim, 1 tsp (5 ml)

Buy red prawns that were frozen at sea, with intact shells or clean tails and no dark spots. If they are unavailable, use very fresh Sicilian or Argentine red prawns of the same size. Choose a whole piece of mullet bottarga in its wax, not pre grated powder, because whole roe has the deeper flavor and grates cleanly.

Preparation

Freeze and thaw the prawns for raw service

Raw prawns must be frozen first. Hold the peeled prawns at minus 4°F (minus 20°C) or colder for at least 7 days, which is the standard that makes fish safe to eat raw. Thaw them overnight on a rack set over a tray in the refrigerator at 38°F (3°C), never in water. Pat them very dry with paper towels before cutting, because surface water dilutes the flavor and blurs the knife cuts.

Make the citrus gel

Whisk the blood orange juice, lemon juice, sugar and agar in a small saucepan and bring it to a full boil for 1 minute so the agar activates. Pour it into a shallow dish and chill for 45 minutes until firm. Cut it into 1/4 inch (6 mm) cubes with a wet knife. Cubes hold their shape and give bright acidity without wetting anything. Chill the cubes in the refrigerator on a small plate until service.

Bake the carasau crisps

Heat the oven to 325°F (165°C). Break the carasau into 12 pieces about 3 inches (8 cm) across. Lay them on a parchment lined tray, brush lightly with the olive oil, add a pinch of salt and bake for 6 to 8 minutes until pale gold and rigid. Cool them completely on a rack. Check one crisp by snapping it, and it should break cleanly with an audible crack. They can be baked in the morning and kept in a sealed tin.

Cut the prawns and prepare the tartare

Chill a cutting board and the mixing bowl in the freezer for 15 minutes. Cut the prawns lengthwise into strips, then across into 1/4 inch (6 mm) dice with a very sharp knife, using one clean pull per cut rather than sawing. Return the dice to the refrigerator on a tray while you prepare the rest, and keep them below 40°F (4°C) at all times.

Dress and dry the tartare

Rinse the minced shallot in cold water for 30 seconds and squeeze it dry, which removes the harsh bite. In the chilled bowl, fold the prawns with the olive oil first, so the fat coats them, then the shallot, chives, orange zest, lemon juice, salt and white pepper. Taste one piece. Now spread the tartare on a double layer of paper towels for 2 minutes and press lightly to remove the liquid that the salt and acid have drawn out. Keep it on ice until service.

Prepare the finishing elements

Cut the wax and the thin outer membrane from the bottarga and keep it chilled, because cold roe grates in fine curls instead of smearing. Segment the blood oranges over a bowl, cut each segment into small dice and drain them on a towel for a few minutes. Pick the fennel fronds and keep them in a covered container over a damp towel so they stay crisp.

Assemble and serve

Refresh the crisps in the oven for 3 minutes at 300°F (150°C) and cool them on a rack for 5 minutes. Spoon about 1 1/2 tablespoons of the dried tartare onto each crisp, add two cubes of gel, a few pieces of diced blood orange and a fennel frond, grate bottarga over the top and finish with a few flakes of sea salt. Carry the plates to the table immediately, and never hold them under a heat lamp.

Plating

Serve on a chilled, matte white or slate plate, three crisps per guest, set in a loose triangle with room between them so the tartare from one does not touch the bread of another. Grate the bottarga directly over the plate at the table or at the pass, so it lands as a fine dry snow and does not clump. Place the gel cubes on the tartare, not the plate, and keep the fennel fronds small. Nothing else belongs on the plate, because the flavors are precise and any extra sauce would blur them. A drop of olive oil on the plate rim is enough, and a lemon wedge is not needed because the gel already supplies the acid. Guests eat the crisps by hand in one or two bites.

Professional Technique

The whole technique is the management of one fact: pane carasau is a dry, hygroscopic bread. It contains almost no water, so it pulls moisture from anything near it, including the air of the kitchen and above all the tartare. As it absorbs water the starch relaxes, the sheet stops snapping and turns leathery and tough. A crisp that was perfect on the tray can be chewy within minutes of contact with a wet topping.

This is why the bread goes back into the oven shortly before service. Three minutes at 300°F (150°C) drives off the water the sheets have taken from the air since they were baked, and restores the snap. The oven is not for color. The crisps then have to cool completely on a wire rack for about 5 minutes, because a warm sheet is still soft and flexes instead of breaking. Warm carasau also melts the fat in the tartare and warms the prawns, which ruins the raw texture. Never stack the sheets while they cool, or the steam has nowhere to go.

The second half is the tartare, which is dried on paper towels for 2 minutes before it touches the bread, so that the liquid released by salt and acid stays on the towel. The plate is composed only at the moment of service, one crisp at a time, and the window is short. Measured on the pass, a properly refreshed crisp stays crisp for about 4 minutes after the tartare goes on. Plates should leave the pass within 90 seconds and be eaten inside those 4 minutes. After 6 minutes the underside is soft, and no amount of good prawn recovers it.

Texture and Moisture Control

The prawn is the second texture to protect. A sharp knife and a chilled board keep the fine muscle fibers intact, so the dice stay silky and distinct rather than mushy. A blunt knife crushes cells, releases juice and makes the tartare wet and pasty.

Order of dressing matters. Olive oil goes on first because fat coats the surface and slows the effect of the lemon juice and the salt. Acid firms and whitens the outer layer of raw protein, and salt draws water, so both are added at the last moment and in small amounts. Left for even 15 minutes, the dressing turns the prawn opaque and firm, like a ceviche, and the sweet, translucent character is lost.

Temperature is the other lever. Raw prawn tastes sweetest and feels silkiest at 38 to 42°F (3 to 6°C). Warmer than that, the flesh softens and the flavor turns flat and fishy. The citrus gel adds acidity as solid cubes and not as liquid, so the plate gets brightness without free moisture. The bottarga is grated over the top rather than mixed in, because grated roe dissolves into a paste when it sits in a wet mixture.

Professional Mise en Place

Equipment and tools

A very sharp slicing knife, a chilled board, a metal bowl over ice, a microplane for the bottarga and orange zest, a wire rack, parchment, a small offset spatula and a sealed tin for the crisps.

Prepared ahead

Freeze the prawns a week ahead and thaw them the night before. The gel can be made a day ahead and kept covered. The crisps can be baked in the morning and stored dry. Segment and dice the blood orange, mince the chives and shallot, and pick the fennel fronds, keeping each in a small covered container in the refrigerator.

Service setup

Keep the prawns and the bowl on ice until the first order. Have the plates chilled, the bottarga already trimmed of its wax, and the oven at 300°F (150°C). Cut and dress the tartare in small batches of one or two tables, and set the crisps on the rack ready to receive it. The only à la minute steps are the oven refresh, the assembly and the grating, and they follow the order of the tickets.

Chef Tips

Buy prawns that are already frozen at sea and labeled for raw use, then check them for black spots at the head end, which is a sign of age. Peel them while still very cold.
Grate bottarga with a microplane, not a box grater, and taste it before adding any salt to the tartare. Good Cabras roe is often salty enough to replace it.
Save the prawn shells in the freezer and simmer them later with tomato and water for a shellfish stock, so the whole animal is used.
If the tartare tastes flat, add a few drops of lemon juice rather than more salt. Sweet prawn needs brightness before it needs seasoning.
Taste the finished dressing on a spoon before it goes near the bread. Adjust it once, then stop, because every extra fold warms the prawns and bruises them.
For a larger party, cut all the prawns in one session and divide them into small trays over ice, so each service batch is dressed from a cold, untouched reserve.

Common Mistakes

Skipping the freeze. Raw prawns that have not been frozen at the proper temperature carry a parasite risk, and no citrus or knife work removes it. Freeze them for 7 days.

Cutting with a dull knife. A dull blade tears the flesh and makes it sticky. Sharpen before you start and cut in single pulls.

Dressing too early. Salt and lemon turn the prawn opaque and firm within minutes. Dress just before drying the tartare and serving.

Assembling before the guests are seated. A plate that waits on the pass with tartare already on the bread will be soft before it arrives. Build after the table is ready.

Using too much bottarga. It is intensely salty and can overpower the prawn. One ounce for twelve crisps is the limit.

Using prawns that are too large or too small. Pieces cut larger than 1/4 inch (6 mm) chew like meat, and finer than that turns to paste. Keep the dice even so every bite has the same texture.

Wine Pairing

Vermentino di Gallura DOCG: The Sardinian classic for bottarga. Its saline, almost briny finish echoes the roe, while citrus and a faint bitter almond note lift the sweet prawn. The acidity is firm enough to refresh the palate between crisps without covering the raw flavors. Serve it very cold, at about 46°F (8°C), to keep the salinity sharp.

Trento DOC: A metodo classico sparkling wine whose fine bubbles and crisp acidity cut through the olive oil and cleanse the mouth after the rich roe. Its yeasty, bread crust notes rhyme with the baked carasau, and the dry finish keeps the sweetness of the prawn in balance.

Etna Bianco DOC: A volcanic white with strong minerality and lemon peel freshness. The salty, flinty backbone meets the bottarga, and the medium body carries the blood orange without turning sweet, which suits a raw shellfish plate very well. The wine's smoky edge also flatters the toasted flavor of the baked bread.

Verdicchio di Matelica DOC: High, mountain born acidity and a dry almond finish give a clean, tight frame. Green apple and herbal notes match the chives and fennel, and the wine has enough texture to stand up to the mild fat of the oil without dulling the delicate prawn. Its long, clean finish leaves the mouth ready for the next crisp.

Storage & Reheating

The finished plate does not keep and should never be stored assembled. Keep the dressed tartare, before it goes on the bread, for no more than 2 hours in the refrigerator at 38°F (3°C), in a sealed container over ice. Do not freeze the tartare, because thawing ruins the texture.

The baked crisps keep for about 3 days in an airtight tin with a sachet of silica gel or a spoonful of dry rice. If they go soft, refresh them for 3 minutes at 300°F (150°C) and cool them on a rack. The citrus gel keeps for 2 days covered in the refrigerator. Unused, uncut prawns can be refrozen only if they were thawed in the refrigerator and never left warm. Leftover assembled crisps should be discarded, because the bread is soft and the prawns have warmed. Keep the shells for stock and use them within 2 days.