A recipe like this is really an invitation to play around. The choice of herbs, the amount of pickled ingredients, tomatoes, and seasonings are all up to your judgement. Are you planning to serve something else with a lot of olives, like Pato con salsa del cura? Then you may want to reduce or eliminate the olives from the relleno. Do you feel unenthusiastic about the lime-and-Worcestershire marinade? Leave it out. (Or try the dish both with and without it.) Would you prefer to use all olive oil instead of part vegetable oil? Go right ahead. Would you like to tone down the parsley? Or combine it — maybe even replace it — with fresh mint and oregano? Great idea. Do bay scallops look good in your fish market? Use them for all or part of the shrimp. What we’re talking about here is a basic method or approach, not a fixed recipe.
Shrimp Filling (Relleno de camarón)
Ingredients
- Juice of 2 limes
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon salt or to taste
- 1 pound shrimp any preferred size, peeled and deveined
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 large white onion finely chopped
- 5 large ripe tomatoes about 2½ pounds, seeded and finely chopped
- 2 teaspoons
Garlic Butter Enrichment - 1 cup finely chopped Italian parsley
- 2 sprigs thyme leaves only
- 4 bay leaves
- ½ cup pimiento-stuffed olives finely chopped
- ½ cup pickled jalapeño chiles seeded and finely chopped
- 1-2 tablespoons brine from olives
- 1-2 tablespoons pickling juice from jalapeños
Instructions
- In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine the lime juice, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, and 1 teaspoon salt. Add the shrimp, toss thoroughly and let stand for 5 minutes. Drain, discarding the marinade. Chop the shrimp into bits no larger than ¼ inch. Set aside.
- In a large skillet, heat the olive and vegetable oils together over high heat. Add the white onion and cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes. Add the tomatoes, garlic butter, parsley, thyme, and bay leaves. Reduce the heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes or until the flavors are somewhat concentrated.
- Add the shrimp, olives, jalapeños, and pickling juices. Cook, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes or until most of the liquid has evaporated. Taste for salt and add another pinch if desired. Remove the bay leaves.
- Serve hot as a first course or as an omelet filling; otherwise, let cool to room temperature before using. This will keep overnight, tightly covered, in the refrigerator, but I prefer to use it at once.
