Scampi alla busara

The busara is a border dish of the northern Adriatic, its paternity disputed between Istria, Dalmatia and Trieste, with Venice as the point where it finally met long pasta. Most accounts place its birth at Fiume (today Rijeka), long famous for the quality of its catch; the tomato 'guazzetto' itself is traced to the Dalmatian coast, where it began as a thrifty fish soup without pasta. Through Istria it reached Trieste — after the First World War by one account, only after the Second by another — and became a badge of the city's cooking, bound up with the memory of the Istrian-Dalmatian exodus. The word 'busara' is contested: some derive it from the 'buzara', the big earthenware or iron pot Dalmatian fishermen cooked in aboard their boats (the cooking broth is itself called busara); Mario Doria, in his Grande Dizionario del Dialetto Triestino, traces it instead to dialect 'busiaro', 'liar' — a lying sauce that looked like rich fish soup but was made from the day's cheap scraps. The Zagreb scholar Predrag Matvejevic proposed instead the dialect 'buzzo', stomach.

The langoustines are sweet and just-set, their shells perfumed into a glossy sauce that is at once sweet from the tomato, savoury from the seafood and gently warmed by chilli; the breadcrumb gives it body, and toasted bread carries every last spoonful.

Cooking the langoustines in their shells is what makes the busara: the shells release carotenoid pigments and glutamate-rich juices that colour and deepen the sauce. Searing them first triggers Maillard browning; the wine's acidity and alcohol lift aromatic compounds and deglaze the fond, and a spoon of breadcrumb absorbs liquid and emulsifies the oil and tomato into the 'almost creamy' texture. Garlic rather than onion keeps the sauce clean and pungent; brief stewing sets the delicate meat without toughening it.