Shrimps in White Wine with Black Olives and Cherry Tomatoes

Ingredients for 4 persons

-  3 to 5 shrimps per person, depending on size.
-  cherry tomatoes: about 24
-  black olives: 1/2 cup
-  salt, pepper, a clove a garlic
-  dry white wine: one or two glasses
-  olive oil
- chopped parsley

These are the olives I used, dried in salt, they come from my olive grove in Umbria. I did them myself (takes 2 weeks in a jar) and added some lemon peels for taste:

But you can use any kind of olive you like, provided they're tasty.


Method

1. Cook the shrimps whole (unpeeled) in a pan over a fast fire, with a clove of garlic and one glass of white wine - covered, about 5 minutes, until done (they turn a nice pink).

2. Lift the shrimps out of the pan (and the garlic too) and clean them. Of course you can also serve them whole and let your guests peel them but I prefer to do the work for them - once cooled off, it's really very easy to do:

3. Meanwhile, start cooking the sauce in the pan you used to cook the shrimps (that way you start off with the shrimp cooking juices), adding again some wine, the cherry tomatoes cut in pieces, and the olives (whole):

 For extra taste, I add a spoonful of fish broth (Knorr makes a good one in powder form) but that's optional. If you do that, go easy with the salt (or it will result too salty). Add pepper.

4. When the tomatoes are cooked (they turn soft in about 5 minutes), I turn off the heat and go to the trouble of removing the tomato skins, pulling them off with a fork:

See? They're piled up in the lower right corner. But you don't need to do that if you don't want to - but in that case, you had better chop up the tomatoes more than I did (I only cut them in half).

5. Now you put the shrimps back in the sauce and warm them up on a medium heat (not too long or too strong or you'll dry up the shrimps). Add the chopped  parsley too. If the sauce looks insufficient, add a little wine until you have it nice and creamy:

6. Now you're ready to prepare the dish - laying the shrimps around rice you've previously cooked (I used Thai rice, bu any kind will do as long as it's simply boiled) and pouring the sauce over the shrimps:

This dish should be accompanied with white wine, cela va sans dire. Since I live in Italy, I drink Vermentino di Sardegna (in the picture above, it's an Aragosta, the best one in my opinion). But of course any good dry white wine will be perfect!