Artichoke Dip

This artichoke dip is one of my favourite dips ever! Yet, I’d never heard of it before Thanksgiving at my friend Amanda’s place… A huge bowl of nachos was standing on the kitchen counter, and next to it, a ceramic baking dish with something hot and cheesy inside. It turned out to be one of the most popular dips in the US: artichoke and spinach dip. A creamy cheesy dip that combines tinned artichoke hearts and wilted garlicky spinach with sour cream, mayonnaise and lots of melted cheese. I could not stop myself from reaching for the nachos again and again, happily dipping my way through this delicious American dip… by the time we sat down for our huge turkey dinner, I could barely eat anything anymore. I’d done a proper artichoke dip binge!

One note on dipping: Since we’re in a slightly weird time at the moment and we all need to be a bit cautious I’d suggest serving the dip with a spoon, so that people just put a bit of dip on a nacho and don’t actually dip the chips into the dip…

This recipe was created as part of my “Recipes for Staying Home” show, you can watch the episode here.

This is a recipe from my cookbook ‘Flavours of Home’.

Ingredients

200g baby spinach leaves*
20g butter
1 garlic clove
1 can artichoke hearts (240g drained)
70g sour cream
70g mayonnaise
50g cheddar, grated
80g pizza mozzarella, grated
25g parmesan, grated
nutmeg
salt and pepper

Method

Makes 1 bowl

Preheat the oven to 180°C fan.

Wash the spinach leaves, then fry them in a dry frying pan in two batches and fry until wilted. Put in a large bowl and leave to cool. Once cool enough to handle, roughly chop the spinach.

Melt the butter in the same frying pan, peel and crush the garlic clove and fry for 1 minute in the butter. Add to the spinach in the bowl.

Drain the artichoke hearts and chop. Add to the bowl with the artichokes, then add the sour cream, mayo, cheeses and season with nutmeg and salt and pepper.

Transfer into a baking dish and bake for 30 minutes until bubbling.

Serve with tortilla chips.

*you can use frozen spinach: simply boil the spinach in salted water, drain and cool under a running tap. Squeeze out as much liquid as you can before proceeding with the recipe.