>The other day i purchased two artichokes..<snip> I was hoping someone out
>there would have (EXPLICIT)
>instructions on how to prepare them in the best most tasty way.
I love artichokes. When I lived in communal-veggie housing in college, we'd
buy them by the case & have artichoke & microbrew parties (decadent
vegetarian fun?). When I stopped eating animal products, I had to get
clever to think of artichoke dipping sauces to replace the fatty
dairy-based dipping sauces like garlic butter & horseradish sour-cream &
mayo that I was used to.
If you eat de-fatted dairy, try mixing some horseradish into nonfat sour
cream. As a vegan, I make a dipping sauce by blending lofat silken tofu, a
little mustard, nutritional yeast, horseradish, cider vinegar, and salt. I
have another tahini-lemon-ginger sauce that's a bit oily for this list, so
email me privately if you want it.
As far as cooking goes, some people trim off the tips of all the leaves,
but I find the leaf-tips make good handles. I just rinse the chokes, then
put the folding-metal-flower steamer in a big pot, add water all the way up
to the floor of the steamer, and pile in the artichokes. Get it to boil,
then turn down the heat to steam them for a long time, until a lower leaf
pulls off when you tug on it (beware steam burns!) -- 35-45 minutes?? Add
more water as needed so you don't scorch your pan!
Serve them with a plate on the side for discarded leaves. Pluck a leaf, dip
the inward-end (the non-spiky end) in the dip, then bite the leaf in the
middle and pull it thru your teeth so that the soft inner meat is scraped
off (along with the yummy sauce). As you work your way inward, the whole
lower end of the leaves become edible. Never eat the spiky leaf tips
though. At the end, scrape the itty-bitty spiky leaves and fuzzy "choke"
off of the concave dish-shaped "heart", and break it into quarters which
get dipped and eaten. This is the best part, kind of the reward after all
that work. The stem is bitter though, so don't eat it. Some people eat only
the heart, and just toss all of the leaves, but I think that's wasteful of
both food & fun...
Did I miss anything?
Noel
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