I’m watching an episode of Good Eats, and Alton Brown demonstrated how to eat the base of an artichoke: Use a paring knife to cut off the tiny thistles on top. (We called these ‘pinfeathers’ when I was growing up.)
Has anyone done this? When I get to the base (he differentiates between the base and the heart) I scrape off the ‘pinfeathers’ with a spoon. Seems much less trouble.
I’m like you, Johnny L.A. I use a spoon for the task.
Depends on what I have available. I just had an artichoke a few minutes ago and used a paring knife because it was handy.
I use a butter knife or spoon too.
I’m a scraper, not a cutter. Seems like Alton’s method wastes too much of the delicious meat.
Here’s the video. He starts getting to the heart of things at about 1:00.
Don’t forget that if it’s Alton Brown you need to start the night before by laying out all of your tools, and putting a bowl in the freezer so it’s nice and cold.
For the record I use a spoon. I’m also not entirely convinced they’re worth the effort, but haven’t bothered to properly cost them out for yield. Prepped and frozen hearts are pretty common now. Such a small reward for something that starts so big.
Well, as he says: There’s not much meat, but they’re full of flavour. I enjoy the leaves every bit as much as the heart. True, I’d like there to be two hearts in every 'choke; but the one is a fine pay-off.
FWIW, I’ve had frozen hearts, and I don’t find them as good as boiling a fresh artichoke and eating your way to the middle.
I also scrape rather than cut. The few times I’ve tried to cut, I’ve ended up losing a bunch of the heart.
I use a spoon to remove the choke. Just a but of pressure and it pops off so you don’t waste any of the good part. We boil ours, so the choke is not as fuzzy looking as the one in the video. Also, he is nuts, those little leaves taste great; they are very much worth it. He also trimmed the stem too short. There is a good bit of flesh in the stem. My daughter holds the stem and heart like an ice cream cone and eats it after dipping it into the lemon butter.
In the first part, which shows the boiling, he puts the stem into the pot and says they’re almost as good as the heart. I agree on the leaves (the small ones, not the pinfeathers). I like to pick them off in a cone, dip the whole end in butter, and chomp off the lower half. No reason to throw them away.
Next question: Butter, or mayo?
(Yes, I’m aware there are other options. But butter and mayo seem to be the Top Two.) I’ve had both, and they both taste good. But I’ll almost always go with butter, perhaps with a little garlic salt sprinkled in.
A stick of butter, melted, with lemon zest and juice to taste, and a bit of salt. Mayo is too much, in my opinion.
I use canola or olive oil in a small dish with salt and pepper.
Plain, butter with lemon or lime juice, or hollandaise. And I use a spoon to remove the choke.
Butter…
AND mayo. Yeah, that’s right.
For my dip, I melt butter. Then I add some lemon juice, bread crumbs, and grated parmesan to it.
Grandma Bodoni used to slice the tops off of the artichokes so they were level. Then she’d boil , and then spread the petals away from the base. She’d stuff each individual petal and the heart with a mix of breadcrumbs, garlic powder, and Italian seasoning. Then she’d beat an egg, drizzle it over the top of the artichoke, and panfry that sucker (top down) in some olive oil. My way is a somewhat simpler version of what she used to do.
I am in the midst of a serious artichoke addiction. I had two for dinner tonight and have four in the fridge right now.
I simply trim the tops about a half inch and the base so the first ring of bracts comes off. I steam them upside down in a cheapo Panasonic rice cooker I’ve had for at least 18 years. Home made vinaigrette is the only thing I put on them. I trim the choke using a sharp paring knife held at the right angle to get the choke and not much else- I’ve gotten to the point where I have almost no waste doing it this way.
I must know how to make this vinaigrette. I’ve had olive oil dips, and they’re pretty good, but not as good as butter. And I love some vinaigrettes on salads…there’s one commercially available red wine vinaigrette that’s 99% fat free that is wonderful. So I must learn this vinagrette, and try it out. Please, don’t keep me in suspense.
Wow, I’d only heard the name Alton Brown before; never had a chance to see his show. From his rep on the Dope, I assume this is an anomaly? If this was all I had to go on, I’d expect him to be convicted of crimes against humanity.
Throw away the inner, tender leaves?
Clumsily hack your way through the heart?
There’s a pretty big helping of wrongness in that video.
I use a spoon, I eat a lot of the tender middle leaves (you have to eat a clump of them at a time) and I scrape with my bottom teeth…seems to work better that way for me. Sure, it’s not a scoop anymore, but the hollandaise I use is clingy, so there are few drips. And I steam mine in the microwave in a covered container…ten minutes for each artichoke. Works great. Can’t believe he was wasting so much of the heart!