The idea for this soup came from Pino di Cicco at his restaurant Antica Osteria Da Divo in Siena, where a plump peeled prawn (shrimp) sat curled on top of a warm bath of soup. Giancarlo couldn’t try it as it contains gluten, so I tried to conceal how good it was, but he realised when I ate the very last grain of spelt from the bottom of the bowl that he was missing something really quite special! You can make this soup with quick-cook farro dicocco, in which case cut the cooking time down to 10 minutes once you add the grains. To make it gluten-free, you could use brown basmati rice or quinoa instead, but alter the cooking times accordingly.