Italian Ricotta Gnocchi with Red Shrimp, Lemon and Zucchini | Gnocchi di Ricotta con Gamberi Rossi, Limone e Zucchine
The whole argument of this plate is that the shrimp should barely be cooked. Gambero rosso from the Strait of Sicily has a soft, sweet, almost gelatinous flesh that dulls within seconds of meeting a hot pan, so the tails go into the bowl raw and are warmed only by the gnocchi that land on them. Everything else is cooked for their benefit.
The gnocchi are ricotta and almost nothing else, bound with one egg, grated pecorino, lemon zest and the smallest useful amount of flour. They are deliberately plain, because what carries flavour here is the shrimp and the orange sauce drawn from their heads. Zucchini arrives twice, once softened into a green cream and once sliced and caught in a hot pan.
None of it takes long, but the order is fixed. Peel the shrimp first, build the head sauce while the ricotta finishes draining, cook the zucchini next, boil the gnocchi last. Serve it in July, when the zucchini are small and firm.
Yield: 4 first course servings. Draining: 8 hours. Prep: 40 minutes. Cook: 30 minutes. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: primo. Region: Sicily, Mazara del Vallo and the Trapani coast.
The Story
Mazara del Vallo sits on the far west corner of Sicily, closer to Tunis than to Palermo, and it has the largest fishing fleet in Italy. Its trawlers work the Mazara banks and the channel that runs toward the Gulf of Gabes, dragging at depths of 1300 to 2600 feet (400 to 800 m) for Aristaeomorpha foliacea, the deep water red shrimp that the town has built its name on. It is cold, dark water down there, and the shrimp that come out of it have a flesh so soft and sweet that Sicilians mostly refuse to cook it at all.
The port itself is a piece of North Africa attached to Sicily. Its casbah quarter still carries the street plan of the Arab town, and for fifty years the fleet has crewed heavily from Tunisia, families settling in Mazara between voyages. That closeness has not always been comfortable: through the 1970s and 1980s Mazara boats were repeatedly seized in disputed waters off Libya, and the fleet sailed anyway. The shrimp are frozen at sea within minutes of coming up, which sounds like a compromise and is the only reason they arrive intact.
The rest of the plate is the summer kitchen of the same coast. Sicilian ricotta is a sheep milk ricotta, sharper and more savoury than the cow milk version, made from the whey left over from pecorino. Zucchini here is dressed with mint rather than basil, a habit that goes back to the Arab period and survives from zucchine in agrodolce to the tenerumi soups of Palermo. The lemons are local too, Femminello from Siracusa or Interdonato from the Messina coast.
Ingredients
For the ricotta gnocchi
Sheep milk ricotta, 1 lb (450 g) weighed before draining
Large egg, 1
Finely grated Pecorino Siciliano, 1/2 cup (50 g)
All purpose flour, 2/3 cup (85 g), plus more for the board
Finely grated lemon zest, from 1/2 lemon
Fine sea salt, 1/2 tsp (3 g)
For the shrimp
Whole red shrimp, heads on, 1 1/4 lb (570 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 1 tbsp (15 ml)
Fine sea salt, 1 generous pinch
For the head sauce
Reserved shrimp heads and shells
Extra virgin olive oil, 1 tbsp (15 ml)
Dry white wine, 1/4 cup (60 ml)
Water, 1 cup (240 ml)
Garlic clove, lightly crushed, 1
For the zucchini
Small firm zucchini, 1 lb (450 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 3 tbsp (45 ml)
Spring onion, thinly sliced, 1
Fresh mint leaves, 8
Fine sea salt and black pepper, to taste
For finishing
Untreated lemon, 1
Extra virgin olive oil, 2 tbsp (30 ml)
Fresh mint leaves, small, 8 to 12
Coarse salt, 1 tbsp (18 g) per 4 quarts (3.8 l) of gnocchi water
Preparation
Hanging the ricotta
Tip the ricotta into a sieve lined with muslin, gather the cloth loosely over the top and leave it in the refrigerator for 8 hours with a bowl underneath. Sheep milk ricotta sheds less liquid than cow milk ricotta, so do not judge by the puddle in the bowl. Judge by the block: it should feel dry at the surface and hold a clean edge when you cut it. A tub that started at 1 lb (450 g) finishes near 14 oz (400 g).
Peeling the shrimp and keeping the heads
Twist the head from each shrimp and set the heads aside. Peel the tails, leaving the last segment on if you like the look, and run a knife tip down the back to lift out the dark vein. Keep the tails covered on a cold plate and do not season them yet: salt on raw shrimp draws water out and starts to cure the surface. Save every shell.
Drawing the sauce out of the heads
Warm the olive oil in a small pan with the crushed garlic, add the heads and shells and press them hard with the back of a ladle for 2 minutes, until they turn a deep orange and the pan smells of roasted shellfish. That pressing is the point: the flavour sits in the hepatopancreas inside the head and will not come out on its own. Pour in the wine, let it evaporate, add the water and simmer 12 minutes. Strain through a fine sieve, pressing again, then reduce to about 1/3 cup (80 ml).
Making the zucchini two ways
Cut half the zucchini into rough chunks and the other half into coins about 1/8 inch (3 mm) thick. Soften the spring onion in 2 tbsp (30 ml) of the oil over low heat without colouring it, add the chunks and a splash of water, cover and cook for 10 minutes until completely tender. Blend with the mint and a little cooking water into a loose green cream and season it. Wipe the pan, raise the heat, add the last tablespoon of oil and sear the coins 90 seconds a side so they keep their bite.
Mixing and cutting the gnocchi
Crumble the drained ricotta into a wide bowl, beat in the egg, the pecorino, the lemon zest and the salt, then sift the flour over and cut it in with a spatula in as few strokes as you can. Stop while the mixture still looks rough. Turn it onto a floured board, divide it in four, roll each piece into a rope about 3/4 inch (2 cm) across and cut short pillows off the end.
Boiling the gnocchi
Bring 4 quarts (3.8 l) of water to the boil with 1 tbsp (18 g) of coarse salt, then lower the flame until the surface is quiet. These gnocchi carry pecorino, saltier than Parmigiano, so the water is seasoned lightly on purpose. Cook in two batches. They rise after about a minute; give them 30 seconds more and lift them onto an oiled tray. Reserve a cup of the water.
Warming the shrimp without cooking them
Season the tails with the salt and the oil now, at the last possible moment. Put the reduced head sauce in a wide pan over the lowest heat, add two tablespoons of gnocchi water and swirl until glossy. Slide in the gnocchi and the zucchini coins and roll them through. Take the pan off the heat, add the raw tails and the juice of half the lemon, roll once more, and serve.
Plating
Use cool plates, not warm ones. A hot plate keeps working on the shrimp after the dish leaves the kitchen and takes them from silky to chalky between the pass and the table. A wide shallow bowl with a low rim gives the green cream somewhere to sit.
Spread two tablespoons of the zucchini cream across the base with the back of a spoon. Pile the gnocchi loosely on top, seven or eight to a portion, and tuck the seared coins in among them so they show at the edges.
Lay three or four shrimp tails over each portion last, curled and facing the same way, and spoon whatever head sauce is left in the pan around the outside. Finish with a fine grating of lemon zest, a thread of raw olive oil and a few small mint leaves. No cheese at the table with shellfish, and no lemon juice on top, which would go on cooking the shrimp in the acid.
Professional Technique
The governing technique is residual heat cooking. Shrimp muscle protein begins to set around 120°F (49°C) and is fully firm by 140°F (60°C), a span of twenty degrees in which a red shrimp goes from translucent and silky to opaque and bouncy. A pan on the flame passes through that window in seconds and cannot be stopped inside it. A pan off the flame, holding hot gnocchi and warm sauce, coasts down through the same window slowly enough to be caught. The tails finish barely set at the surface and still raw at the centre, which is how this shrimp is eaten in Mazara.
The second technique is the extraction of the head sauce, which converts what most cooks throw away into the only concentrated flavour on the plate. The hepatopancreas inside the head holds the fat, the pigment and nearly all of the aroma, and it is bound inside a rigid shell that a simmer alone will not open. Crushing the heads against the pan while they toast breaks that structure and releases carotenoid pigment into the hot oil, which is why the colour changes so sharply. The wine then lifts what has stuck and the reduction concentrates it.
Texture and Moisture Control
Ricotta made from sheep whey behaves differently from the supermarket cow milk tub most recipes assume. It is drier, higher in fat, and gives up its liquid slowly, which is why this version hangs for 8 hours and why the flour is measured at 2/3 cup (85 g) instead of the usual 3/4. Flour should account for roughly a fifth of the drained curd by weight and no more. Beyond that you are no longer making a dumpling held together by cheese, you are making a small piece of pasta that happens to contain ricotta.
Water management on the savoury side matters just as much. Zucchini is mostly water, so the chunks destined for the cream get a covered pan and a splash of liquid to steam them soft, while the coins get an open pan and a high flame so their moisture leaves as steam and they take colour instead of stewing. The head sauce is reduced to 1/3 cup (80 ml) so that a splash of starchy gnocchi water can make it glossy at the end without thinning it. If the pan looks dry, another spoonful of that water fixes it; more oil does not.
Professional Mise en Place
Almost everything here can be ready in advance except the shrimp, which are seasoned and used in the final thirty seconds. Work backwards from that moment.
Equipment and tools
Sieve and muslin for hanging the ricotta, set over a bowl
Small saucepan and a heavy ladle for crushing the shrimp heads
Fine sieve for straining the head sauce
Blender or immersion blender for the zucchini cream
Wide pan for finishing, a spider, and an oiled tray for the cooked gnocchi
Prepared ahead
Ricotta hung 8 hours in advance
Shrimp peeled and refrigerated unseasoned, heads kept separately
Head sauce made and reduced up to 1 day ahead, refrigerated
Zucchini cream made up to 1 day ahead, blended and seasoned
Gnocchi shaped up to 3 hours ahead on a floured tray
Service setup
Gnocchi water up and held just below a boil
Head sauce warm in the finishing pan, gnocchi water within reach
Zucchini coins seared at the last minute so they stay crisp
Shrimp cold, unseasoned, covered, salted only as the pan comes off the heat
Plates cool, lemon and mint ready at the pass
Chef Tips
Buy the shrimp frozen if the alternative is a fresh looking tray that has sat on ice for two days. Deep water red shrimp are frozen on board within minutes of surfacing and that is their best state. Thaw them on a rack in the refrigerator, never in water, and use them the same day.
Taste the ricotta on its own before you commit. Sheep milk ricotta varies between dairies and some is quite sharp, which is lovely against shellfish but means the pecorino should be cut back by a tablespoon.
Do not throw out the strained solids until you have pressed them a second time. A ladle leant on the sieve for another twenty seconds gives you a tablespoon more of the orange liquid, and that tablespoon is worth more than anything else you could add.
Pick zucchini that are small, heavy for their size and firm at the stem. Large ones carry a watery seedy core that ruins both preparations, softening into nothing in the cream and refusing to colour in the pan.
Common Mistakes
Cooking the shrimp in the pan. Thirty seconds over a flame is already too long for gambero rosso, which turns from silky to rubbery in the space of a few degrees. Add the tails off the heat and let the gnocchi warm them through.
Salting the shrimp early. Salt on raw shellfish draws moisture out and begins to cure the surface, leaving the flesh firm and slightly glassy before it ever reaches the pan. Season them at the very last moment.
Discarding the heads. Binning the heads throws away the fat, the colour and most of the aroma, and leaves a pan with nothing in it but oil. The heads are the sauce.
Overworking the gnocchi dough. Cutting the flour in with a few strokes keeps them tender; stirring or kneading develops gluten and produces a tight, springy dumpling. Stop while the mixture still looks a little rough.
Using large zucchini. The watery seeded core of a big zucchini will not colour and dilutes the cream into something bland. Small, firm and heavy is the only useful specification.
Squeezing lemon over the finished plate. Acid on raw shrimp keeps working at the table and will cure the tails into something closer to ceviche. Use the juice in the pan and only the zest at the end.
Wine Pairing
Grillo Sicilia DOC: The Sicilian answer and the one that sits closest to the plate. Grown across the Trapani hinterland behind Mazara, it gives grapefruit, sage and a distinct salt edge, with enough weight to handle the shrimp head sauce and enough acidity to keep pace with the lemon. Look for a stainless steel bottling rather than a wooded one, since oak sits badly against raw shellfish.
Locorotondo DOC: Verdeca and Bianco d'Alessano from the trulli country of the Valle d'Itria, grown high enough that the wine stays light and low in alcohol. It is pale, dry and quietly almond scented, and that restraint is the point: it refreshes between mouthfuls without adding a third aromatic voice to a plate that already has mint and lemon.
Fiano di Avellino DOCG: Grown high and cool in the Irpinian hills, Fiano brings hazelnut, pear and a smoky mineral note over firm acidity, and it is one of the few Italian whites with the texture to meet a sweet shellfish head on. Its nuttiness works with the sheep milk ricotta rather than against it.
Riviera Ligure di Ponente Pigato DOC: The classic Ligurian prawn wine, grown on terraces above the sea near Albenga. Pigato is herbal and faintly resinous, with marjoram and green almond over a saline finish, and that register lands directly on the mint. It has a touch more body than most coastal whites, which is useful against the olive oil and the ricotta.
Alta Langa DOCG: A Piedmontese metodo classico from Pinot Nero and Chardonnay, aged at least thirty months on the lees, and the choice for anyone who wants bubbles with shellfish. The mousse lifts the sweetness of the shrimp and resets the palate after the zucchini cream, while the brioche note from the lees gives the plate a savoury backbone.
Storage & Reheating
The head sauce and the zucchini cream both keep refrigerated in sealed containers for 2 days and are better made in advance than in a rush. Rewarm the sauce over low heat with a spoonful of water and the cream in a small pan, stirring, adjusting with a little oil if it has tightened. Neither freezes well.
Raw shaped gnocchi hold 3 hours on a floured tray in the refrigerator, or freeze solid and keep bagged for up to 1 month, cooked from frozen with an extra minute in the water. Peeled raw shrimp must be used within 24 hours and never refrozen after thawing.
The assembled dish does not keep. Shrimp held at the edge of raw carry on setting in a warm bowl and are firm within minutes, and no reheating recovers them. Make only what goes to the table.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 4 first course portions:
Calories: 495 kcal
Total Fat: 26 g
Saturated Fat: 9 g
Trans Fat: 0.2 g
Unsaturated Fat: 16 g
Cholesterol: 215 mg
Sodium: 720 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 30 g
Fiber: 2 g
Total Sugars: 6 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 33 g
Lactose: 3 g
Principal micronutrients: iodine, selenium, zinc, phosphorus, calcium, vitamin B12, vitamin C, vitamin E
These are estimates. Sodium depends on the pecorino and on how hard the gnocchi water is salted, and the cholesterol figure reflects both the egg and the shellfish.
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