Favorite appetizer- Grilled Artichokes with a Spicy Sweet Remoulade Sauce

I have a lovely local restaurant that has some tasty treats called Dunlay’s On The Square. It’s located in the heart of Logan Square in Chicago. I had this awesome appetizer there and wanted try to recreate it at home. Grilled artichokes with a spicy sweet remoulade sauce. Sooo tasty and smoky. The combination of the grilled flavor of the artichoke with the spicy sweet of the creamy remolade was such a delight on my taste buds.

I knew that I had to probably pre-cook the artichokes some how and then make up a mayonnaise-based sauce with both spicy and sweet notes in it. I first tried it out on my mother who loved it so much, that it now is I believe her favorite appetizer for me to make for her just short of the Caprese salad. Mom does love her veggies! So here it is, my version of grilled artichokes with a remoulade sauce. This is a delight for any occasion.

Grilled Artichokes with a Spicy Sweet Remoulade sauce

Grilled Artichokes

Ingredients

4 large artichokes

1 lemon, halved

4 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

-Spicy Sweet Remoulade Sauce, recipe follows

Directions

Preheat an outdoor grill to medium heat.

Break off the artichokes' small outside leaves. Cut off the top with a knife and trim the sharp points of the leaves with scissors. Slice the artichokes in half, rubbing them with cut lemon as you go to avoid discoloration. Squeeze the lemon halves into a bowl of cold water, soak the artichokes for 10 minutes, and then wash with cold water to remove sand.  Place artichoke halves in a large steamer insert over simmering water and steam until heart is tender, about 15 to 20 minutes depending upon size (inserted knife blade will go in smoothly). Allow to cool. Remove the choke with a spoon.

Prep the cooled artichokes by brushing on the olive oil, salt and pepper. Grill the artichokes on both sides until golden on the surface with nice grill marks and heated through, about 5 to 10 minutes. Serve with the Spicy Sweet Remoulade Sauce.

Spicy Sweet Remoulade Sauce

Ingredients

1 c mayonnaise

1/4 c ketchup

1/4 c garlic cloves, finely chopped

1/2 t cayenne pepper

1/2 t chili powder

1/2 t paprika

1/2 t salt

1/4 c cilantro, finely chopped

Dash Worcestershire sauce

Dash ground black pepper

Dash lousiana style hot sauce (I prefer the original Louisiana hot sauce)

Directions

Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl and serve as a dip with the grilled artichokes.

Leftover sauce will keep, refrigerated, for up to 3 or 4 days.

Recipe guide:

T= Tablespoon/s

t=  teaspoon/s

c=  cup/s

Boy, do I love this dish. It was really fun for me, trying to recreate what I had in a restaurant at home with no recipe. It was a challenge, but a good for me to fine-tune my taste skills.

For as long as I can remember I’ve had a knack for tasting food and being able to pick out what spices and flavorings were in the dish. I guess I have a very sensitive palate. I’ve also read that women on the whole tend to have more taste buds then men, but start to lose them earlier around age 40 as opposed to 60 for men. Not sure how exactly accurate that is, but I have read many articles along those lines. And I sure do love to read about food, especially other blogs about food. And here is a great one that talks about movies and food. Who doesn’t love dinner and a movie?

So till my next yummy food blog post, live love and eat some fantastic food.

A tasty dessert at Revolution Brewing

I thought I would change things up a little and do a restaurant and dessert review. Recently for one of my classes at school (Culinary Science), I had to do a report on a plated dessert at a nice restaurant.  The assignment was to pick a nicer restaurant, no Arby’s or TGIF’s allowed and order a plated dessert. We needed to do a review of both the restaurant and the dessert we ordered. We had to comment on the different aspects of a plated dessert as you will soon see. I hope you enjoy.

Revolution Brewery is a new Logan Square Bar-restaurant. Since I live in the area and it’s new, I thought I’d check it out and also do my plated dessert review. Revolution Brewery is located on Milwaukee Avenue just north of California. It's a  brewery, bar and restaurant. When I walked in, I was really put at ease. It has a very warm and comfortable feel about it. I picked this location because their online menu looked fantastic, especially the desserts.

The service was great, very friendly and almost over the top. I think because this restaurant is so new they are being very eager to please. I went with a friend of mine and we were seated in these awesome tall booths that over looked the bar and had a great view of the open kitchen in the back.

For my dessert, I ordered the cherry bourbon cake. Here is the description it came with: Cherry bourbon cake, Michigan sour cherries soaked in bourbon and baked in an almond-rosemary upside down cake with a vanilla bean cream. The dessert was $6. It arrived in a simple but elegant big white bowl.

The textures in the dessert were very good. The cake was soft and had a nice crumb to it. There was a nice crunch with the toasted almonds spread around.  The vanilla cream had a cool creaminess to it. The sauce spread around was tasty, but needed to be thicker and have more of it. It was too thin and soaked right into the cake and sort of layered there around the plate without a nice body.

The flavor of the dessert was fantastic. The cake was very aromatic with almond flour and rosemary. The rosemary was subtle and didn’t over power the dish. The light vanilla in the cream was a refreshing balance to the sweetness of the cake and the tartness of the cherries.

The color was attractive on the plate. It had a golden brown hue for the cake, speckled white for the cream and a bright red for the cherries and sauce. It was sprinkled with some of white with flecks of brown in the toasted almonds. I personally wanted a more contrasting color to make this dish pop more. The dessert was presented very symmetrically on the plate. I think my eye would have been drawn to it more, if it had been a bit off center and more care was taken in plating it.

The temperature of the different elements on the plate where pretty much the same. The cake was slightly warm and the cream was at best room temperature.

But all in all the dessert was very enjoyable and the service throughout was fantastic. I give it a 91%. I look forward to going back and trying not only more of their desserts, but the food on the rest of the menu as well. The rest of the menu had a nice variety of vegetarian, fish and meat dishes, which looked very tasty. 

Also they have their very own beers that they brew and serve which are only a few at the moment. But I'm sure they will have more to choose from the longer they are open. I was also delighted to discover they have Three Philosophers beer on the menu, which is a truly flavorful and potent beer that is newly a favorite of mine. I do recommend if you get a chance, to stop on by and check out Revolution Brewing. 

Till next time live, love and eat some fantastic food.

Revolution Brewing LLC

2323 North Milwaukee Avenue
Chicago, IL 60647-2924
(773) 227-2739