Artichoke à la Francaise
Along with its stunning architectural silvery-green foliage, this edible perennial has the most stunning blooms that bees go absolutely crazy for. Part of the thistle family, these deep vibrant purple, almost sea anemone like flowers are just otherworldly. If you however, pick the buds before they open, you can cook yourself a fantastic treat that isn’t to everyone’s taste 😉
The taste can be described as a nutty earthy flavour, slightly bitter and some say it reminds them of brussel sprouts or asparagus. I was fortunate enough to have been served this from an early age on and am so grateful to the history my family has with this wonderful plant. My Swiss Great Grandfather grew them on the thatched roof of his farmhouse, or so the story goes. This recipe is my mum’s and as I’m making this for the first time myself (it’s been a patience game, something I’m not good at 😆), I’ve been asking her a million questions.
Putting in writing what someone else can do with their eyes closed is always an interesting recipe write up, so please experiment with me as I’ll be navigating one of my favourite dishes my mama makes.
Bon appetit!
*please make sure you’re eating artichoke flowers and not cardoon, cardoon is grown for its edible stems
Ingredients
**for the boiling part**
Artichoke flower buds
it should feel heavy, have closed leaves (a little parting is ok), leaves should give a squeaky sounds when squeezed
20g sugar
1 teaspoon salt
Water
cold, enough to cover the buds, they float though!
**for the vinaigrette**
3 tbsp olive oil
½ - 1 tbsp vinegar or lemon juice
depends on how sour you'd like it
Salt
to taste, it can take a bit
Freshly ground pepper
to taste
Directions
**for the boiling part**
1. Cut the stem off to under the bloom.
2. Put the flowers in a large, deep pan & fill with water – enough to cover the flowers and to not have it boil dry, they do float and they’ll be fine. Add the sugar and salt and bring to a boil.
3. Once boiling, turn the heat low and slow boil it for an hour or so. You can check b y gently peeling a petal and give it a taste to see if it’s soft enough. (if too much water has gone you can top it up with boiling water)
4. Let cool in the pan of hot water
5. Once cooled have them drain upside down (stemside up) in a colander.
*If homegrown without any pesticides there will be a chance of dead bugs in the water.
They’ll keep, cooked, up to 3 days in the fridge.
**for the vinaigrette**
1. Mix oil and vinegar together and season to taste, the artichoke can take quite a bit of salt and without it can taste a bit bland.
2. Serve the vinaigrette in personal dipping bowls.
**how to eat?**
1. Peel each petal off and dip the thick fleshy part into your dip.
2. Place the light coloured thicker end in your mouth, dip side down, pull, scraping through your teeth to remove the soft, pulpy, delicious portion of the petal (Why dip-side down? Your tongue is where most of your taste buds are, so you’ll get a fuller flavour if you strip the leaves that way.) Scrape that bit off with your teeth (are you team bottom or top teeth? I’m definitely bottom) and repeat this process till all petal are eaten.
3. You’ll get to a thinner, purple tinted section of petals and you can just pull the whole thing off.
4. Next you’ll find something that looks like fuzzy hair called “choke”. If cooked right, you can just pluck these out in chunks (see images) and no scraping is needed.
5. You’ve now come to the heart. Cut the last remaining bit of stem off and any other harder bits at the bottom.
6. Cut the heart into bite size chunks, dip in your vinaigrette and enjoy the last bits of your artichoke.
All waste bits can go on the compost heap to feed future ‘chokes. Full circle.
Bon appetit 😋🤤
