Shrimp Rissoles, in a portuguese way

I love to travel, from planning everything ahead and making lists, to packing my bag, enjoying the trip almost as much as the destination. Unfortunately, i don't travel as often as i'd wish to, so instead i like to travel in my kitchen, with dishes from places i have been, or places i wish to go to.

Lisbon is my favorit destination, and i'm lucky enough to be going again next week (YEAY!). But when i'm away from this city for to long, i like to bring Portugal to my table. Now obvisouly, that includes some cod fish dishes, that will be posted here at some point.

But today's recipe was my mum's choice. I lended her the fantastic book by Tessa Kiros "Piri Piri Starfish", and she wanted to try this one out. So we gathered our ingredients and cooked the recipe together, which made it twice as much fun.

Shrimp Rissoles (by Tessa Kiros "Cuisine comme à Lisbonne")

For 20-24 rissoles

For the dough:

125ml of Milk
1/2 Teaspoon of Salt
50gr of Butter
250gr of Flour

In a pan, pour the milk, add the salt and 150ml of water and bring it to the boil. Just when it starts to boil, take it of the flame and add the flour in one go. Mix it with a wooden spoon until you get a ball of dough. Let it cool.

For the filling:

180gr of Raw Shrimps
1 Bay Leaf
125ml of Milk
50gr of Butter
1 Shallot, finely chopped
1 Small Celery Stick, finely chopped
2 Tablespoon of Parsley, chopped
1 Teaspoon of Piri Piri Sauce (Tabasco will do)
1/2 Teaspoon of Paprika
1 Garlic Clove, chopped
2 Teaspoon of Tomato Paste
2 Tablespoon of Flour
1/2 a Lemon, Zest and Juice
Salt, Pepper

Mix the milk with 125ml of water, add the bay leaf and start to heat it up. When it starts to bubble, put the shrimps in, and cook them for 5 minutes, without boiling them.
Take the shrimps out, but keep the liquid you cooked them in. Peel the shrimps and chopped them roughly.

Put the shallot and the butter in a pan, on a normal flame. When the shallot starts to color, add the celery, the parsley, the garlic, the piri piri and the paprika. When the flavors are combined, add the tomato paste, and after a few minutes add the flour. Stir well before adding a bit of the liquid you cooked the shrimps in. Bring to the boil and let it get more consistant for about 5 minutes, on a lower flame.
Away from the flame, add the shrimps, aswell as the lemon zest and juice. Add salt and pepper to taste. Let it cool.

To make the Rissole:

1 Egg
3 Cups of Breadcrumbs
Olive Oil, for frying
Lemon, quartered to serve with

Put flour on your working surface and on your hands. Roll the dough out, so it's about 2mm thick. Cut out disks of about 10cm diameter.
Put a spoon full of the filling in the middle of the disk, put a bit of water around the edges, and bring in back together, in a half-moon shape. Pinch the edges together to seal the rissole.

Beat the egg with a bit of salt and pepper, put the breadcrumbs in a plate. Put the olive oil in a frying pan, don't heat it too much.
Put the rissole in the beaten egg, than in the breadcrumbs, before going into the oil. Unless you have a very big pan, you're going to need 3 or 4 times to fry them all.
Let them get to a golden color, before turning them carefully around. Once they are cooked, put them on some kitchen paper, to absorb the oil.

This works as an entry, or as a meal with a nice salad. Serve them with some lemon to squeeze on and some salt. If you're seated under the sun, in a nice garden, they even taste better i think ;)