How do you eat your artichokes? With butter/margarine? With mayonaise? Some other dressing? Do you scrape the leaves with your teeth? Or do you only eat the heart?
I just had a couple small artichokes for lunch. (Or breakfast. Since I hadn’t gotten round to eating today, they technically “broke my fast”.) I melted some margarine in a bowl and stirred in a little garlic salt. I dipped the leaves and scraped off the good stuff with my teeth until I got to the tender ones. Then I pulled off a few in a bunch and bit off the margarine-dipped ends. Finally, I finished with the hearts.
I looooooove artichokes! And it’s the height of the season here for 'em.
First trim the tops - I usually just cut the tops down so all of them are uniform, stem too so they’ll sit flat in the pot. Spread open the leaves and stuff in grated Galbanino (I guess like a Monterey Jack stateside) grated cheese spiced with garlic, pepper, salt, red pepper and basilico (basil?), . Place in pot, fill with water so it comes up midway up
but not covering tops of 'chokes. Drizzle olive oil over the works. Cook slow over med/low flame for 15 minutes covered, water should be simmering, not a full boil. Add more water as needed till they’re nice and tender. Then mangia! mangia! Saving the heart for last, of course
I cut off the top 1-2" before cooking to speed things up.
If the 'choke is a monster, I’ll peel the stem as well.
After cooking it’s time for the Mayonnaise. Sometimes lemon and melted butter. I scrape off all the large leaves with my teeth. The thin inner ones go three at a time. I then cut out the choke proper (the central thorny mass) and scoff down the Mayonnaise slathered heart in one or two bites of yummy artichokey goodness.
Speaking of which, there a giant 'choke in my vegetable drawer even as I type. It’s going on the menu tonight along side my Puerto Rican pigeon peas and dirty Spanish rice topped with shredded chicken breast.
I looooooovvveee artichokes, too, and have a hard time finding decent ones here in the South USA. They’re always a bit tough, even in season. But I eat 'em anyhoo, every last scrape of a leaf.
I steam them, and make a dip of mayo, Dijon mustard, lemon juice, S&P, and curry powder. A bowl of dip,a plate of artichokes, and an extra plate to hold the pile of leaves. Spoon out the spiky flower bits, and cut the heart into quarters, then go reaaaalll slowww with each succulent heart piece. Mmmmmm. My “last meal” request would be a plate of artichokes, and a plate of rightly-fried okra.
Chattywine’s recipe is making me groan with yab-yum yum. Thanks, I’ll be mangiaing maniacally on that!
After trimming the points off of the leaves, I stuff them with a combination of italian bread crumbs, romano cheese and a hint of garlic. Drizzle with olive oil and steam until the leaves gently pull off. Dip the stuffing filled leaf into a melted butter and lemon juice combo, scraping every last morsel of the heart and stuffing off of the leaf … I know what’s for supper tomorrow!
Thrown in a pot and steamed. Pull off one set of outside leaves, the dipped in butter and scraped. Always cooked one more 'choke than number of eaters then the race is on. Who ever can scrape all their leaves the fastest gets to eat the extra one too. Oh and I dip in butter then mayo. I have also discovered that artichocke resin is a powerful tar. One time while I was steaming them I forgot about the and let them sit for hours. The condensed water dripped back in to the bottom of the pot with artichoke resin, and eventually all the water boiled off. I could not get the pot clean ever again, and had to throw it out because everything tasted really bitter.
Stuffed with breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese, garlic and parsley, steamed, then drenched in melted (not drawn) butter. Scrape with teeth. Use spoon to remove the choke, divide the heart into four pieces, bare teeth at anyone who so much as looks at your plate sideways, devour (the heart, that is. The lookers can be dispensed with in myriad other creative ways.)
Alternately, just steam and dip leaves in garlic butter. Proceed as above.
Wolfman, I have some thrifty/stingy Scots blood in me, and the Thistle is the Scots emblem, and an artichoke is a thistle, so I drink the boiled artichoke broth, cooled down. Thistles are traditionally regarded as great liver medicine. Know what you mean about the over-charred mess though. I ruined a pot that way, too. Hours is a good clue, pay attention. Bitter, and a great metallic stink, too.
That pretty much sums up how I eat them. I’ve been leaning more towards butter these days though.
We planted artichokes at our house in Seaside Oregon. By the first year we had small chokes good for a few bites. They are now on their 4th year and MAN are they good right off the plant. It’s a totaly different flavour.
The 6 plants gave us at least 40 chokes. We’d eat about half of those and let the end of season chokes bloom. They are kind of a nice flower. A big purple thisle looking thing.
I looove artichokes. Usually, I boil them and serve them with a half butter, half olive oil sauce with some sauteed garlic. The best thing about them is how they make everything else taste better. When I have an artichoke dinner, I find a really dry cheap bottle of white wine like an orvieto or a pinot grigio.
About once a year, friends of mine and I have an artichoke festival. Mmmmmmmm.
Don’t even get me started about those Cara Mia marinated baby artichoke hearts. I can slurp down one of their little jars in a heartbeat. The marinade also makes a dynamite base for salad dressing.
Trim as described above. Boil about 15 minutes; meanwhile, toast a piece of whole grain bread, and carefully brown a quarter onion, two cloves of garlic, ground black pepper, and basil or another pungent herb in a very scant t olive oil. Heat oven to about 350 F. Remove artichoke from pot and cool. Chop up toast, add 2 oz chopped, cooked lean protein (seasoned baked tofu, chicken, or salmon), 2 t extra virgin olive oil, onion/garlic mixture–mix. Scoop out the choke. Fill central cavity (artichoke’s not yours) with stuffing mix. Set artichoke upright in small, non-reactive baking dish. Spray with olive oil from Misto or other pump. Mix water and a little sherry; add about 1/2 inch to dish. Put in oven. Tent loosely with foil. Add water as needed during cooking. Bake about 1/2 hour-45 munutes, checking for doneness by pulling an inside leaf. Consume voraciously, pleased with oneself for managing to eat an artichoke without a gallon of butter.
I will try your method; Shoshana. The SO was diagnosed with high cholesteral and diabetes recently. So it’s a low fat, low carb lifestyle for us now. We tried artichokes last night with a ‘low fat’ mayo, and the results were not pleasing. The ‘low fat’ mayo was too sweet, it tasted more like Miracle Whip.
I’ll really owe you one if the SO likes your recipe.
My previous favorite way to do 'chokes was Greek style. I would trim small chokes, cut them in half; and simmer them in olive oil with lots of garlic cloves and sliced lemons. I would strain the olive oil and use it for other dishes.
An aspiring contract killer named Artemis was trying to break in to the business, so he offered to off some one for a pittance just to get his name out there.
Some guy offers him a dollar to kill his wife. So, the aspiring killer follows her to the grogery store and strangels her. Or so he thought… checking the photo the husband gave him, he realizes he just murdered the wrong girl. Ooops! Spying the real victim in the next aisle, he gets her too.
An off duty policeman witnesses the crime from a distance, and rushes in to save the woman, but it’s too late. However, he does nab young Artemis and gets him to confess the whole story.
