Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Wee Artichoke


Two weeks ago we began to get all of our produce delivered from local organic farms. It has been amazing. Everything is so fresh, pretty, yummy and seasonal. And, since we just receive whatever is ripe that week, we've had the opportunity to try a lot of things that we'd never had before.

In this week's box we got a bunch of baby artichokes. Neither John nor myself had much experience with artichokes apart from artichoke dip and I wasn't sure what to do with them.

Enter my new favorite recipe blog! Simply Recipes has so many amazing looking things -- one of which was the baby artichoke recipe we tried last night. There are several other recipes I'll be trying this week to use the leeks and chard that we also got in this week's box of produce.

These artichokes were amazingly tasty. I'm really hoping we get some more in the next couple weeks before they go out of season so we can have this dish again. I ate two servings on my own. I probably could have eaten it all. I've included the recipe below with my changes -- it differs slightly from the original recipe.


Sauteed Baby Artichokes

Ingredients
2 pounds baby artichokes
Bowl of water with 3 cups of ice water and 3 tablespoons of white vinegar

1 cup of water
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 green onions (scallions), chopped, including the green ends
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice
a dash of Herbes de Provence -- I just did a could sprinkles of thyme and basil cause that's all I had
1/2 teaspoon salt
several grinds of fresh ground pepper
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Rinse the baby artichokes. Set out a bowl with 3 cups of ice-cold water and the vinegar. Working on the artichokes one by one, cut off the stem to 1/4-inch from the base; peel back and remove the petals until only the top third of the cone tip is pale green green. Cut off the pale green tips. Trim off any remaining green from base of artichoke. Halve or quarter the artichokes, depending on their size and drop in the bowl of acidified water (to prevent discoloration).

Drain artichokes. In a large skillet, heat the artichokes and 1 cup of water to boiling. Cover and simmer 3-5 minutes, depending on the size of the artichokes. Drain well.

Using the same skillet, heat to medium high and add the olive oil. Add the artichokes, onions, garlic, and herbs. Cook for five minutes, stirring occasionally. Sprinkle on 1 Tbsp lemon juice, salt and pepper. Put in serving bowl, sprinkle freshly grated Parmesan cheese on top.

Serves 4.


If you're going to try this recipe, please go look at the original here so you can see the step-by-step pictures. And check out the rest of the site! I'm very excited to try more recipes.

P.S. Photo from the Simply Recipes blog.

4 comments:

the handmade hipster said...

Working at the seed store, I've recently become obsessed with tons of things that I've never eaten before, like the chard you'd mentioned. Kale? I don't want to move, so I can plant a garden here.

Mamasita said...

Cara I wanted to thank you for the laugh with that silly Trader Joes video! I watched it a lot... I'm not sure why I like it so much...

Ruth said...

We ate ours tonight! I cut mine up similar to your instructions and sauteed them for 5 minutes with some olive oil, butter, and salt. Yum!! This recipe sounds amazing though. If we get some more I'll have to give it a try! Mine turned a lovely shade of brown after I cut them up without that acid water trick. =)

I found a great recipe that uses carrots, leeks, cinnamon, cumin, fresh mint, and honey (yummmmmm) and we had those on Monday and I finished them off today - I still have some carrots and leek left (the leek we got weighed like 2 pounds!) so I might make it again. Tomorrow night is asparagus. I am so in love with vegetables right now.

I'm going to check out that blog!

Ruth said...

I forgot to add that I like your use of the word wee. ;-)