Here’s a wonderful vegetarian/Lent-friendly/seafood-friendly dish that comes together real easily and quickly. This dish is built for ease of preparation, use of a good convenience food in canned chickpeas, it’s healthy, it’s delicious and it’s filling. Shrimp give you the protein, chickpeas and artichokes are loaded with goodness and zucchini contain vitamins A & C!
Most markets sell perfectly good frozen shrimp that are even deveined…you just have to peel the shells. I like to slowly thaw my shrimp (any other frozen fish or seafood) overnight in the fridge. Don’t use those pink pre-frozen shrimp – flavourless, rubbery and a waste of your money. The biggest task here is cleaning/prepping your artichokes. Relax, it’s real easy. I look for artichokes that have the stem in tact. About two inches of the stem is in fact still edible and delicious. I peel the outer leaves with my hands, then cut off the brown end of the stem and I clean the stem and around the base of the flower with a vegetable peeler. Then I cut the top half of the flower off (discard) to expose the choke. I dig in with a grapefruit spoon and scoop it out. Artichoke cleaned. Place your cleaned artichokes in acidulated water (so they don’t brown on you) until you’re ready to use them in your dish.
This is a wonderful Spring dish with fresh scallions, fresh dill, lemon juice and some warm savoury bottom-end flavouring with some dried Greek oregano.
Shrimp With Artichokes & Chickpeas (Γαριδες με Αγκιναρες Και Ρεβυθια)
(serves 4)
1 lb. of raw shrimp, peeled & deveined
1 tsp. of sweet paprika
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
12 artichokes, pared and trimmed
1 450gr. can of chickpeas, drained & rinsed
3 cups hot vegetable stock (or water)
salt and pepper to taste
1 large marrow zucchini, sliced into 1/2 inch rounds
1/4 cup chopped fresh dill
2 scallions, thinly sliced
1 tsp. dried Greek oregano
juice of 1 lemon
Extra-virgin olive oil for finishing
- After you’ve peeled and deveined your shrimp, rinse and pat-dry and drizzle with some olive oil and season with salt, pepper and sweet paprika. Place a large pot on your stovetop over medium-high heat and a couple of turns of olive oil and when hot, add the shrimp and saute until just pink. Remove the shrimp with a slotted spoon and reserve.
- In the same pot, the remaining olive oil, onions and garlic and then reduce the heat to medium and saute until translucent (about 6 minutes). Add the cleaned artichokes, chickpeas and hot stock (or water) and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, season with salt and pepper, cover and cook for about 25-30 minutes. At this point, the artichokes should be just tender. Now add the sliced zucchini and stir-in and simmer uncovered for another 6-7 minutes.
- Take the pot off the heat and add the reserved shrimp, the sliced scallions, chopped fresh dill and dried Greek oregano, lemon juice and gently stir in. Check and adjust seasoning. Divide and plate, serve with some crusty bread and a chilled bottle of Domaine Evharis Ilaros white – a Savatiano/Roditis blend.
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© 2007-2011 Peter Minakis
20 Responses
Υπέροχοκαι πρωτότυπο νηστίσιμο φαγάκι! Θα δοκιμαστεί.
Never thought of pairing shrimps and chick peas! why not? looks mighty delicious.
Μόλις γυρίσω από τη Θεσσαλονίκη θα το μαγειρέψω, μ΄αρέσουν όλα τα υλικά!!
An amazing dish that I would love to eat!
Cheers,
Rosa
Loverly stuff Peter. Love how the prawns brighten up the dish!!
πολυ ωραια συνταγη, με παρα πολυ ιδιαιτερα υλικα. πρωτη φορα βλεπω να συνδιαζονται ρεβυθια, αγκιναρες και γαριδες!φαινεται τοσο αρωματικο και λαχταριστο , θελω να το μαγειρεψω αυριο κιολας!
While I like each of the ingredients individually, I’ve never put them together in one dish. But why not? It looks perfectly delicious. I think I would sprinkle a little feta here too.
Peter this looks wonderful. I love things that are vegetable “heavy” this time of year.
Beautiful spring dish Peter. I am not a big artichoke fan but I can easily see that this would be delicious with other veggies too!
Great veggie and shrimp combination. Those zucchini look like the ridged kind that you find in Italy.
Το πιο “πλούσιο” νηστίσιμο πιάτο που έχω δει!!
Ενα σωρό νόστιμα υλικά έχεις βάλει, σίγουρα θα είναι τέλειο!!
More Peter magic and with 3 of my favorite things: shrimp, artichokes and chickpeas. Lovely, tempting, delicious and I need to start making your recipes! I love this one!
That is a nice pile of goodness! I like the addition of zucchini. It’s always a great addition to any dish.
This does look really delicious. I’m wondering if you had a lot of time, if you could make a stock from the shrimp shells and fennel, and then simmer the presoaked dried chickpeas in that with the artichokes? OH, man this is really inspiring.
HA! Said like a true Greek (“What do you mean, you don’t eat no meat? That’s ok. I make you lamb.”) Although I know the Greeks have funny ideas about what does and does not constitute meat during lent, I think most biologists, chefs and vegetarians would agree that shrimp are definitely meat. This dish may work for lent vegheads, but strictly speaking, it is definitely not a vegetarian dish. Still, it looks delicious. Thanks for the inspiring recipes & photos, as always.
Kalliopi, in Orthodox Lent, seafood and shellfish with no blood IS allowed in the diet.
Oh yum! I have to say one of the things I miss about living in Northern California was getting all those farm fresh artichokes in different sizes perfect for cooking. What we get here in MN is so sad
βεβαίως! I’ve just always thought it was a funny rule for lent. It hardly feels like fasting if you can eat shrimp and scallops every day :)
excellent lent recipe, Peter! Are you fasting? I am too scared still to woman-handle fresh artichokes.
Those artichokes look so good! Th rest looks good too but they really caught my eye!