Shrimp Scampi over Rice Tortitas

Shrimp over Rice Tortitas

For my wedding I registered for a tapas cookbook.  If you are unfamiliar with what are tapas, they are Spanish appetizers and finger foods that are served in the bars and restaurants of Spain.  At  a tapas restaurant you will usually find a menu full of all kinds of delicious appetizers and finger foods to share at your table. 

Today I finally pulled out that cookbook and tried a dish from it.  I was going to just cook a quick dinner of yellow rice with some shrimp scampi but when I saw this recipe I thought this would be a great variation, since it was rice & potato “tortitas”. (“tortita” means pancake)  I make my shrimp “scampi” by saute-ing the shrimp with some olive oil, butter, chicken stock and 3 cloves of garlic, real easy.

Rice Tortitas (From Tapas, by Pepita Aris) Serves 4

2 Tbs olive oil
1 cup of cooked long grain white rice
1 potato, grated
4 spring onions (scallions), thinly sliced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 Tbs of chopped parsley
3 large eggs, beaten
1/2 tsp of paprika
salt & ground pepper

Heat half of the olive oil in a large frying pan and stir-fry the rice, potato, spring onion and garlic, over a high heat for 3 minutes, until golden
Tip the rice and potato mixture into a large bowl and stir in the parsley and eggs, with the paprika and plenty of salt and pepper.  Mix well
Heat the remaining oil in the frying pan and drop in large spoonfuls of the rice mixture, leaving room for spreading.  Cook the tortitas for 2 minutes on each side.
Drain the tortitas on kitchen paper and keep hot while cooking the remaining mixture.  Serve hot.

These “tortitas” are great to serve any sort of protein on, you can also eat them plain with some sort of dipping sauce.  Yummy!