Artichokes (and how to eat them)

Artichokes are actually a type of flowering thistle. The artichoke itself is the bud of the flower. If you haven't had one before, eating an artichoke might seem a little strange. Once you've had one though, you will understand how simply delicious artichokes can be. They are also surprisingly easy to prepare. Methods range from stuffing and baking, to pickling, and steaming. The recipe that I share below mostly involves a gentle boil, and the artichoke is eaten with a light lemon-butter sauce. If that doesn't entice you, artichokes were historically thought to be an aphrodisiac. Yup

Artichokes (and how to eat them)
Servings: 2 (only 2-3 fit in a pot!)
Time: 45-55 minutes (5 minutes prep)

2 medium to large fresh artichokes
2 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
lemon juice
butter (melted)

Fill a large, 4-5 quart pot with water. Add no more than a tablespoon of olive oil. Peel the garlic, slice into a few, large pieces and add to the pot as well. Bring water to boil. Using a large knife, cut about an inch off of the top of the artichoke. The idea is to rid the 'leaves' of many of their thorny tops. Some people like to get the tops of any missed leaves with a pair of kitchen scissors. Cut off the stem, leaving an inch or less at the base. Once the water boils, carefully drop in the artichokes. Reduce the heat to medium or even medium low, keeping the water at a gentle, rolling boil. I usually cover the artichokes while they cook, although some people leave the lid off to decrease the bitterness of the artichokes. The artichokes will pretty much be fine on their own while they cook for about 45 minutes to an hour, depending on the size of the artichoke (larger ones take longer). I do like to roll the artichokes around in the water with a fork, occasionally. When done, the leaves should be able to be easily separated from the base.

To make the dipping sauce, combine 2 tablespoons of melted butter with about a table spoon of lemon juice. Add more lemon juice to taste. The sauce should be on the tart side, as it pairs really well with the slightly bitter artichoke.


How to Eat Artichokes
1. Peel off each of the primary 'scales' - the leaf looking things - and draw the base of the scale through your teeth, scraping off the delicious, tender meat.

2. As you get closer to the center the 'scales' will become much smaller and translucent. Some may be purple. You can carefully bite off the base, but stay away from the small spine at the tip!

3. When you get to the 'choke' (really the unopened flower), which looks stringy in the photo below, you'll need to scrape off all the chokey bits (Don't eat), leaving the 'heart'(base) intact.



4. Cut up the tender heart and stem and dip in the butter. Definitely the best part of the artichoke!

onions, garlic, and oil....oh my!

Just a few tips on some very common ingredients and how to easily manage them. I'm sure some of you are familiar with these ideas already, but I'd figured I'd share for those who do a little less cooking.

Onions

Onions can be a pain, especially when you need to chop or dice a large quantity. From watching my mom and Rob's mom I've picked up this quick method to easily dispatch onions and end up with perfectly sized pieces:

1. After peeling, cut the onion vertically from stem end to root end. You should be cutting through both ends so that each half still has its own root and stem. If you do this incorrectly, you'll end up with one half with an intact stem, and one half with an intact root.


2. Place the cut side flat down on the board and slice off the stem end. Being careful not to cut through the hairy root node, make parallel vertical slices while moving from one side of the onion to the other. The spacing between the slices partly determines the size of your dicing. If you need very small pieces, make a few parallel horizontal cuts moving from top to bottom (you should be looking at the broad, flat surface of your knife, not the top edge).


3. Starting with what used to be the stem end, make vertical slices that run perpendicular to the vertical slicings you made in step two.



By the way, if you're just simply slicing or quartering onion, Mara recommends submerging them in water while cutting in order to reduce the pungent chemical release. Sharp knives always help because you crush fewer odor producing plant cells.

Garlic

I love garlic. I'm pretty sure that you can never have enough garlic in recipes that call for this ingredient, so if you have less of a fondness than I do, you might want to consider using a smaller amount in the recipes that I post. But I really don't recommend reducing your garlic! A lot of people don't like prepping garlic though because as with onions, garlic is very pungent and in addition can be quite sticky. It can also be a royal pain to remove the outer skin. That's why you need one of these:


It's just a little rubber tube that you can use to remove the papery outer skin. Simply insert clove into tube, roll around vigorously, and dump out your freshly disrobed garlic. Cut off the knobby root end of the clove and you're good to go. How to remove the sticky garlic ooze from your fingers? I've heard that rubbing your fingers in sugar works, but I've never tried that myself. If you rinse off with hot water and soap before your fingers dry, that should work. Also, surprisingly, washing up with toothpaste removes most icky things, including shark oil, which I'm sure only a small number of you ever have a problem with....

Olive Oil

You probably won't catch me using cutesy oil terms like "evoo" on here. One, olive oil is pretty much the oldest condiment on the planet and cooing "evoo" seems disrespectful in some way. Second, it reminds me of "evo", the dry food that my cats get. Third, it's really up to you if you want to buy and use this sometimes ridiculously expensive food item. Is it necessary? No. Does it really add more flavor? Yes. If money wasn't an obstacle would you use it all the time? No.

In fact, there are many situations where you should use regular or lite olive oil. One of these times is when you're going to be frying food in olive oil. Olive oil has a low smoking point, which means that when it gets very hot it burns unpleasantly. This is why olive oil is not used in deep fryers. Virgin and extra virgin have even lower smoking points than regular olive oil. In general, if you want to add a deep olive-oily flavor to food, use virgin or extra virgin. If that's not a big deal to you, or if the oil is only being used to add texture or moisture to a dish and the other ingredients will hide the flavor anyway, go ahead and use regular. Regular and lite olive oils have such a mild flavor that you can easily use them in place of canola, vegetable, and peanut oil....unless of course you're deep frying! Some quick guidelines:

- Virgin or Extra as a dressing in salads, as a condiment, in cold foods, in sauces that aren't cooked for a long time and you want the fruity olive flavor
- Regular or lite for lightly frying, sauteing, baking into foods, and for sauces where the oil is merely a vessel for holding other flavors like pepper, garlic, wine, etc.

By the way, I buy regular olive oil by the gallon or more because I use a lot if it. I buy small bottles of higher quality oil because virgin and extra don't keep as long and fresh oil tastes much better (if your oil actually goes bad, you'll know, whew). Different kinds of olives and different companies produce very differently tasting oils. Try some to see what you like. If you're really picky you might discover that you only like certain brands of oil in particular dishes! Personally I like Central Market's extra virgin because it has a nice flavor and is a super value for what you get (compare the unit prices because oils come in a ridiculous variety of bottle shapes and sizes). Always store in a cool dark place! Sunlight is evil.