Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Cooking an artichoke

Today I cooked an artichoke.

I found them on sale at the grocery store and thought I'd give it a try.

And it's not that hard!

First cut off the stem. I found that a serrated knife worked best.




Then, trim off the top third. In hindsight, I don't really know if this is necessary. I kinda cut of some of the good parts of the leaves.

Then, I steamed it for 30 minutes.

I don't have a steamer, so I just added to a pot: a couple inches of water, a garlic clove, a lemon slice, and some bay leaves. I stuck the artichoke in, put the lid on, and brought it to a boil. Once it was boiling, I turned the heat to low and set the timer for 30 minutes. The smell was awesome.



When it was done, it looked like this



The leaves just kinda fall off and you eat them. A certain way, apparently. I had to google it. You grab the wide part and put the white end in your mouth, and scrape off with your teeth. It took me a few tries to get the hang of it.

Then, don't be like me and throw away the heart. I got to the middle, tried to eat some of the leaves, but they were pointy! I had to google again to figure it out, and dig it out of the trash. (It was just on top, haha). This link was very helpful. There's going to be a fuzzy part. Scrape it out. The bottom of that is the heart. How easy is that?

Most of the time you dip the leaves in a sauce and then eat them. I wasn't feeling it, so I scraped some of the leaves with a spoon and added it to the pasta I was making for dinner, along with the hearts. Pretty yummy.

I feel like this would be a fun thing to have with friends over. I just need a good dip.

3 comments:

Heather said...

Artichokes = a perfect way to convey garlic butter to your mouth.

For the most part I just use the canned variety (in pastas and dips and such) since getting fresh chokes here is too much work.

Enjoy your new found food! (and don't throw away the choke--Also don't eat the fuzzy part like me the first time I had one.)

Jennifer said...

Haha, I tried to eat it but it was gross so I spit it out.

Jen said...

I had an artichoke dinner party while in college. It was fun and yummmmmy. Yeah you don't cut off the top lol. As I was reading that you threw the heart into the trash I was like SHE BETTER HAD GOTTEN IT BACK OUT! Let's have an artichoke dinner party!