12-25: Parmesan Rice with Shrimp is a great weeknight dinner option or even perhaps a side dish for a potluck or party. It has similarities to paella and risotto, but isn’t as time or skill-intensive as either of those. And as you can tell by the frequency of how much I’ve been posting lately (not much), anything quick is much appreciated.
I feel like they were trying to roughly capture the essence of Shrimp Etouffee with the flavors used in this recipe, but with much less work involved. Cajun/creole-inspired isn’t new for Simply Delicious, but it’s rarely executed faithfully.
For all the heat that this dish claims to have, a dash of Tabasco and a dash of premixed chili powder isn’t exactly going to set people’s hair on fire. Feel free to add a bit more in there if you’re willing to push it to the limits–Simply Delicious takes no responsibility for your recklessness, however.
Ingredients. No fresh cooked shrimp on hand, so frozen will have to do.
Dicing and chopping the vegetables.
Seems like a big pan for such few veggies, but it’ll fill up quick.
Mixing in the rice and stock.
While the rice cooks, I sauté the somewhat-defrosted shrimp with the garlic and parsley.
After getting some color on the shrimp and mixing in a bit more butter.
They tell you to cook off any additional liquid from the rice, but you can see that wasn’t really an issue here–my rice got some extra color on the bottom. No worries–I love a bit of crunchy rice mixed in (seriously).
Tossed in the shrimp & parsley mixture and mixed as instructed.
Looks pretty decent. Nothing fancy, but definitely edible.
Final plated picture, complete with Parmesan cheese topping. Like I said up top, it’s similar to a risotto or paella, but with somewhat Creole flavors. Definitely gets the job done for a weekday dinner.
Grade: B+
