Recipe from the New Orleans School of Cooking Yeild: 8-10 servings Ingredients

• 24oz quartered artichokes
• 1qt strong chicken stock
• 1 tbsp. chopped parsley
• 1/3 C flour, plus 1 Tbsp
• 1 qt heavy cream
• 2 C. chopped green onions (split for cooking and garnish)
• 1/2-1lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1/4 C. melted butter
• 1Tbsp Kaydub’s Cajun blend
• 2tsp Salt
• 2tsp pepper

Directions

• Combine artichoke, chicken stock, green onions, salt, and Kaydub’s Cajun blend and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer for about 12 minutes
• Combine butter and flour for a light roux and add to simmering pot. Stir in heavy cream and simmer for 10 minutes. For roux, just after it looses it’s "butter cookie" smell, don’t let it darken.
• Add shrimp and simmer for 5 more minutes. Serve with freshy chopped green onions and parsey for garnish.

Tasting notes: After having made this for the first time, I had two thoughts. The first is, the shrimp are really optional. In the south, you can get tiny bay-sized shrimp which pack the flavor of a full shrimp. In other areas, those just aren’t available. I had this soup in New Orleans with the small shrimp, and they really added to the overall flavor, since you had a shrimp in every bite. With larger shrimp, it didn’t add as much. Not sure if finely chopping the larger shrimp would work, I’ll try that next time. However, it’s still a great soup without the shrimp, and if you remove them, you have a hearty vegetarian soup. The second is, this is a VERY heavy soup. This is the unadulterated recipe from the school, but I’m going to have to work with it to lighten it up for my own tastes. Obviously the first thing would be to reduce the heavy cream, but I actually halved that for my test, and it was still too heavy for me. I have to experiment with 1/2 & 1/2, or a blend of cream and light milk since you can’t eat much of this without feeling like you’ve eaten your fat for the day.

2009-10-01 20:30:50 +0000 UTC

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