American Cooking: Artichokes Stuffed with Shrimp and Green Goddess Dressing

A bit late for this cookbook, but today I made another not-so-typical American dish, Artichokes Stuffed with Shrimp and Green Goddess Dressing (p70). I made a half recipe with three artichokes, normalish in size for what I usually buy, but apparently large by American standards.

The instructions in the recipe for dealing with artichokes are fairly standard ones. Instead I used the method for Roasted Artichokes from a recent issue of Cook's Illustrated's. This meant I ended up with halved artichokes rather than hollowed out ones. Actually, this was a fine way to deal with the chokes, but we missed the "bowl" effect.

The Green Goddess Dressing was good enough that I was sorry I didn't make the mayo myself. (It was Hellman's instead.) Next time ...

The chokes are stuffed with small cooked shrimp mixed with the dressing. I didn't really have enough shrimp, but it was still quite edible. (We have extra dressing that's we'll probably use for a salad in the next days. This is not very closely related to store-bought green goddess dressing, much tastier.)

It's a little puzzling to me how this dish should be served and there are no clues in the text. I served it as a starter. One artichoke was slightly larger than the other two, so the two ladies at dinner had the bigger halves, while the gents each had two smaller halves. It's quite large for a starter, but seems a bit small for a main. And it's a bit rich for a main.

At table, we thought the shrimpy sauce might be good to stuff avocado halves, a lot less trouble, and then a nice size for a starter. A half recipe made a lot of filling, so maybe a quarter recipe would do for 4 avocados or 8 servings.

Unfortunately I didn't manage to get the pic of the final dishes properly focused.