Erica De Mane

Italian beauty on a stick.

Recipes:

Gremolata Chickpea Salad
Shrimp and Mushroom Spiedini with Rosemary and Lemon

My feeling about spiedini, Italian-style kebabs, is that since they’re long and lean, eating them will make me long and lean. Well, lean maybe, but long might be more problematic, since I’m only five-foot-one, and I’m likely to stay that way until I get old enough to start shrinking. But leaner would be welcome (I still have a bit of excess thigh blubber I’d like to whittle down before beach weather arrives).

Never too thin or too well fed is my new motto, and my continuing quest here at Skinny Guinea is to provide you with delicious Italian recipes, using the best ingredients, that are naturally low cal, low carb, low sugar, and healthy. The spiedini fits perfectly into this framework, and the psychological effect of eating food that looks slim itself can’t be underestimated. Quite often when I have guests for dinner who are watching their weight, I skewer up a batch of spiedini, and it seems to put everyone at ease. Tuna, lamb, beef, shrimp, scallops, monkfish—any fish, meat, or vegetable that’s tender enough to grill but not likely to crumble or disintegrate with cooking will work well on spiedini (swordfish, good; flounder, no good; leg of lamb good; beef stew meat, not good). Dieters love the look of a skewer on their plate. No greasy sauce, maybe a lemon wedge, hot off the grill, the crisp, seared thing resting on a bed of sautéed Swiss chard, possibly, or served on the Mediterranean-inspired chickpea salad I’ve chosen here.

Shrimp or sea scallops or chicken livers are ready-shaped for spiedini; other stuff such as tuna or beef is easily cubed. I cut my pieces about 2 inches across so they can get a good sear without cooking through too quickly. Tossable pieces of meat or fish allow you to immerse all the surface area in a flavorful marinade first, for a real flavor boost. And high heat from a grill or broiler is a great method for not only caramelizing the outside of your spiedini but burning off excess fat (and you don’t need much fat for cooking, either). Quick and hot is the way to go here. I love my stove-top grill pan with a passion. It has changed my dieting life. The only drawback is a smoky apartment, but since I hurled my smoke detector into the trash years ago, that’s no longer the ear-blasting nuisance it used to be.

(Both recipes serve 4)

Gremolata Chickpea Salad

2 cups dried chickpeas, soaked overnight in cool water covering them by about 4 inches
1 fresh bay leaf
Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 large garlic clove, minced
The grated zest from 1 lemon, plus a squeeze of lemon juice
6 fresh sage leaves, well chopped
A large handful of flat-leaf parsley leaves, lightly chopped

For serving:

1 large head chicory, torn into little pieces

Drain the chickpeas and put them in a pot. Cover them with at least 4 inches of fresh, cool water. Add the bay leaf, and bring to a boil over high heat. Turn the heat to low, and partially cover the pot. Simmer until the chickpeas are just tender. Depending on how dry they are, this can vary. I’ve had chickpeas cook in an hour or so, and I’ve had them take 3 hours; you just have to test one from time to time. Add additional hot water if the level gets low.

When tender, drain the chickpeas well, and transfer them to a large serving bowl. Drizzle on 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and season with salt and black pepper. Toss. Now add the garlic, lemon zest and juice, sage, and parsley, and toss again gently. Taste for seasoning. Let it sit and come to room temperature while you cook the shrimp.

The plated dish.

Shrimp and Mushroom Spiedini with Rosemary and Lemon

For the marinade:

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
3 large sprigs of rosemary, the leaves chopped
A pinch of sugar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
The zest from 1 lemon, plus a big squeeze of lemon juice
Freshly ground black pepper
A pinch of salt

For the spiedini:

12 jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined but with the tails left on
16 medium-size Cremini mushrooms, left whole
3 shallots, peeled and cut into chunks
4 approximately 10-inch-long skewers (if you use wood, soak them in water first so they don’t burn)
Flat-leaf parsley leaves, for garnish
Lemon wedges, for garnish

In a bowl large enough to hold all the shrimp, mushrooms, and shallots, combine all the ingredients for the marinade and give them a good stir. Add the shrimp, mushrooms, and shallots, and toss everything around to coat well. Let this sit for about 10 minutes (seafood doesn’t need a long marinade, and in fact can start to get mushy if it stays in anything acidy, like wine or lemon juice, for too long). Now poke the shrimp, mushrooms, and shallots onto the skewers, alternating ingredients. Each skewer should have 3 jumbo shrimp and 4 mushrooms, with shallot in between. Lay the skewers out on a platter, pouring any remaining marinade over the top.

Set up a stove-top grill pan over high heat. When hot, place the spiedini on the grill pan, and cook them, without moving them around at all, until you get good grill marks, about 3 minutes. Give them a flip, and grill the other side until the shrimp is nicely seared and just tender, about another 2 to 3 minutes. Place the spiedini on a platter.

To serve, toss the chicory in a tablespoon of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon juice, and a pinch of salt. Divide it up onto four dinner plates. Spoon some of the chickpea salad over the chicory, scattering it around a little so the chickpeas nest in the chicory. Place a skewer on each salad, and garnish each plate with the parsley and a lemon wedge. Save any leftover chickpea salad for another meal (it makes a great addition to a frittata, for instance).