Artichokes are one of those ingredients that I just love! The best ones I’ve eaten were from a streetside just outside of Naples in Italy where they had grilled them over charcoal with plenty of olive oil and sprinkled them with flaked sea salt. I remember that experience because we had taken them into the car and as we wound our way down the hillsides on our way to Amalfi, we indulged in these beautiful morsels and made a pretty big mess along the way. It was heaven! I have no idea what their artichoke recipe was but I would love to go back and watch how they made them.
They may not look like much after roasting, but they are worth every bit of effort.
Still, I really haven’t cooked with them that often. Firstly, I have hardly found them easily. Once I had found them in a farmers market in Australia and we happily boiled them up and dipped them in butter on a cool evening in Sydney. Here in Singapore, I about died when I found one at NTUC Fairprice but it cost $18 and already looked black from oxidation!
I’m thrilled whenever Avo & Co get these in their boxes! I always order extra so I can invite people over and wow them with my artichoke skills… Usually, we just boil them plain and focus more on the dipping sauces. This coming week, however, I wanted to do something different. So luckily enough, Cedric and Clement dropped by three gorgeous artichokes for me this past weekend and I had a chance to try a new recipe before I have people over. 🙂
Artichokes are funny vegetables…
If they can be actually called vegetables. Some say they are a flower or a thistle. Regardless of what they are, when you prepare them, there is always that moment when you’ve made a huge mess and wonder why people even bother! Trust me. They are wildly delicious and worth every bit of effort. They’ll surprise you I’m sure because while the taste is hard to classify, it is something you just want to keep eating. Maybe it’s the process you have to go through and the ritual of eating that makes them so special to me.
So here is what you do if you ever get your hands on one.
There is debate as to whether boiling or roasting brings out the best flavour. I’ve done both and I have no favourite however if you are going to roast them, try this out. Either way, you still have to prep them (the painful bit). But even so, there is always that anticipation of eating them after you’ve cooked them so like I said, it’s totally worth it.
I don’t even think I can call this a recipe because when you have no idea like me, just going with instinct works the best. Hopefully, this inspires you somewhat to just try them out at home. I googled a whole bunch of methods and ended up trying this one and it was delicious.
Ingredients:
Please use the quantities below as a guide and adjust to your taste. I love garlic so mine will have tons in them!
- Artichokes, allow one whole globe per person – more if they’re greedy guts
- A bulb of garlic, peeled and minced up
- Fresh herbs – thyme, oregano, rosemary will all do. You can leave these in springs or chop them up if you want to add them to the dipping sauce after roasting
- Olive oil
- Lemons – at least three or four
- A bowl of water
- Salt and pepper to taste
Artichokes are not the same without an awesome dipping sauce or two. We just used equal amounts of butter and lemon juice, lots of sea salt and spooned the garlic and herbs we stuffed the artichokes with into the dressing after.
Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
Preparing the artichokes
Firstly, get a bowl of room temperature water ready and squeeze some lemon in there. Go ahead and put the rest of the lemon in the water. This is because artichokes are notorious for turning black immediately from oxidation and this helps to stop the oxidation.
Next, check the stems and if they are really fibrous and tough, cut them off. I made the mistake of leaving them a bit too long on mine. After that, cut off the top of the artichoke (the part that would open up as a flower). You’ll probably want to take off two to three cm, maybe more, at the top. Even though this seems like a waste, these parts are usually hard and unedible.
Give them a quick rinse with water and then cut them in half (see below).
I found that If I put the artichoke down flat after chopping off the top of the flower, then sliced it through the stem, it was so much easier than cutting it from the side.
The next part is the painful part. Take a spoon and scoop out the fuzzy centre, called the choke. Try and get it all out because it’s a nuisance when you’re trying to enjoy your artichoke and you get a mouthful of fuzz.
You can see from some of my pics that I haven’t done this very well at all!
Rub your artichokes with lemon as you go along and pop them into your lemon-juiced water as you complete the rest of them.
When you’re ready, line a tray with baking paper and get ready to go. Pull your artichokes out of the lemony water and pat them dry. Next, line them up inside the tray and fill them full of garlic and herbs. Liberally coat them with olive oil as well then sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Next, and I know this seems counter-intuitive but it’s all good, just flip them back over, cut side down. I know the filling will most probably drop out but it’s fine, trust me. Again, coat with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. I also give a good squeeze of lemon over the top too.
Pop them into your hot oven for 15 minutes. The outsides will get nice and toasty in the process. Then cover them up with tin foil and let them cook for another 25 minutes. Bake them until they are nice and soft in the middle. I poked a knife down the middle to see if they were done but do this near the heart or near the stem because the leaves can get hard closer to the top.
While you’re waiting, make your dipping sauces. I wanted to see if butter or olive oil tasted better so we made two. Both had equal amounts of fat and lemon juice. We added sea salt and pepper to them and once the artichokes were cooked, we spooned out the garlic and herb filling and mixed them in.
When your artichokes are done, all you need to do is eat them! My darling daughter had never had one so read on for how I told her to do this. She absolutely loved it.
How to eat these delicious morsels
Starting on the outside, peel off a leaf from the artichoke. Dip the fatter, fleshier side into one of your dipping sauces then put this between your teeth. Next, use your teeth to scrape the flesh away from the skin (like you might eat an edamame bean in the pod). Don’t eat the rest of the leaf because it won’t be very nice. Keep doing this until you get to softer, more tender leaves on the inside. Just go with your instinct. If it tastes good and the texture is right, just eat it! If it’s hard, spiney or tough, then don’t eat it.
You’ll be left with a mound of scraped off leaves to show for your delicious artichokes! If you try these, let me know how it goes!
We were not paid to write this story. Avo and Co did send us these artichokes complimentarily and we do photograph their weekly vegetable boxes for them as a paid gig but we get inspired by the produce on our own and write these posts under no obligation.
