This is a recipe born by chance and by challenge.
A beautiful challenge, the kind that makes you grow and learn by doing things, getting your hands dirty, and sharpening your wits.
I fell in love with it from the first bite, and it surpassed my husband’s unquestionable judgment. So I put this dish in my favorite recipe book, the handwritten and smudged one I keep in the kitchen, within easy reach and in the pantry. I’ll make this recipe whenever I feel like packing my mind and venturing into exotic flavors… but not too exotic.
Ingredients for 7 skewers (wooden skewer size: 15 cm):
21 prawn tails (about 440 g)
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
4 tablespoons olive oil (or seed oil)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon wildflower honey
1 pinch pepper
1 pinch garlic powder
1 pinch salt
1 teaspoon sweet paprika powder
6 large fresh mint leaves
Ingredients for the sauce:
300g fresh or frozen peas
4 large fresh mint leaves
1 litre of cooking water (of which 50ml of cooking water is kept aside)
100g fresh robiola cheese
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil (or seeds) to taste for cooking
Clean the shrimp, removing the shell and discarding the intestines. Rinse them quickly under cold water and pat them dry with paper towels.
In a container (with a lid), prepare the marinade by emulsifying together the oil, soy sauce, honey, salt and pepper, sweet paprika, a pinch of garlic powder, and the chopped mint leaves. Add the shrimp to the marinade, mix well, taking care not to break them, and refrigerate for at least an hour, covered.
In a pan, toast the sesame seeds for about 5 minutes, without adding any seasoning, and be careful to let them brown gently without burning. Set aside.
Now it’s time to make the sauce: in a pot, bring 1 liter of water to a boil with the mint leaves. Once the water boils, add the peas and cook for 15 minutes, then drain and plunge them back into cold water, preferably from the refrigerator.
In a blender, combine the fresh robiola, the 4 mint leaves you used while cooking the peas, the well-drained peas, 50 ml of the pea cooking water, and season with salt and pepper. Blend everything well and store the sauce in the refrigerator.
Remove the shrimp from the marinade and thread them onto the skewers, three at a time. You’ll have seven skewers in total.
Heat a cast-iron grill pan. When it is very hot, brush it with a drizzle of oil and cook the prawn skewers for 3 minutes on each side. Once they are cooked, sprinkle them on both sides with toasted sesame seeds.
Serve the skewers hot, accompanied by the mint pea sauce.