I’ve been on a shrimp jag the last couple of weeks. It began with Shrimp in Chipotle Sauce, or Camarones Enchipotlados, from Diana Kennedy’s cookbook The Art of Mexican Cooking. This dish of perfectly cooked shrimp in a slightly sweet tomato-based sauce with spicy, smoky, roasted flavors can be served as a main dish, hot with white rice, or as an appetizer, hot or cold. I like the idea of serving the shrimp cold, as an alternative to the popular appetizer of boiled and chilled shrimp with cocktail sauce. In my fantasy, Shrimp in Chipotle Sauce are served on a veranda, preferably overlooking the ocean, with a cold beverage to women dressed in light cotton sundresses and men in sear-sucker pants and crisp, cotton shirts. (Because it was snowing where I live day before yesterday, it is indeed a fantasy.)

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This is Georgia Cone’s family recipe for Spanakorizo, but with a twist. In this version, the classic spinach and rice pilaf is topped with cooked shrimp and feta cheese and baked until bubbling, to make a nourishing and very flavorful one-pot rice dish.

Georgia’s family likes to use converted rice for pilafs; she says that it holds up better after longer cooking times. For many years I’d thought converted rice was some sort of instant rice. Far from it. Converted rice has been parboiled and then toasted, which, despite it being partially precooked, makes it very hard—making it take longer to cook than regular rice, and hold its shape. (more…)