Iberia · Volume 08, The Sherry Triangle and the Kitchen Al-Andalus Left Behind
Tortillitas de Camarones
Cádiz
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- Hands on 20 minutes · Waiting 30 minutes
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Batter fried rather than crumb or flour fried, and distinct from pescaíto frito in method as well as ingredient: chickpea flour, harina de garbanzo, is repeatedly described as essential to both flavour and the characteristic crisp edge, not an optional substitution. Ratios found across sources varied rather than converging on one standard, from 80 g chickpea flour to 20 g wheat flour, to a three-to-one wheat-to-chickpea split by volume; this chapter gives a working middle ground below rather than manufacturing false precision. Common additional ingredients: a small chopped spring onion, chopped parsley, and whole small shrimp folded through the thin batter rather than blended into it, so the tortillita fries as a lacy, shrimp-studded disc rather than a fish cake.
As tradition built it
Makes about 12. About 20 minutes, plus 30 minutes resting.
Ingredients
- 150 g wheat flour
- 50 g chickpea flour
- 250 ml cold water
- 150 g raw shrimp, whole, small
- 1 spring onion, finely chopped
- 1 tbsp a small handful of parsley, chopped
- 1 tsp salt
- for frying olive oil, for frying
Method
- Whisk the wheat flour and chickpea flour together with the water to a thin, smooth batter, roughly the consistency of double cream.
- Rest 30 minutes in the fridge.
- Fold through the spring onion, parsley, shrimp and salt.
- Heat a shallow depth of olive oil in a wide pan, and ladle in small amounts of batter, spreading each one thin so it fries lacy and crisp rather than thick and doughy.
- Fry 1 to 2 minutes a side, until golden and crisp at the edges, and drain on paper before serving hot.
What a modern chef changes
The batter's texture controlled with more precision, and the shrimp given a separate moment of its own.
Rung 1, applied to a batter rather than a soup
Method
- Rest the batter overnight rather than for 30 minutes, in the fridge, for a more developed, less raw-tasting flour flavour once fried, the same patience this chapter asks of a longer fermentation elsewhere.
- Fry the shrimp separately, very briefly, and fold them through only at the very last moment before the batter hits the pan, rather than resting them in the batter for half an hour, for a shrimp that stays genuinely just-cooked rather than slightly overdone by the time the fritter is eaten.
- Judge the fry by lace and colour, not by time alone, since a too-thick tortillita reads as heavy no matter how long it fries; spread each ladleful thinner than feels natural.