Cooking Artichokes.

[Kadie]

What is your favorite way? Sometimes we boil them for an hour or so, and sometimes we cook them in the pressure cooker. I usually just salt the water a little, but my mom always put a lot of spices in her water. I can not remember any of the spices she used. Any ideas?

[NMDemDist2]

1. i steam mine then drizzle with garlic butter

i watched a foodtv show where the guy trimmed them to the hearts with just the tenderest leaves and tossed them in his chicken pasta dish. that looked pretty cool too

[Kadie]

2. How long does it take to steam them?

About the same time to boil them?

That chicken dish sounds good too.

[NMDemDist2]

4. about 45 minutes in my steamer n/t

[Stinky The Clown]

5. That was Alton Brown

I happened to see the same show! :)

[NMDemDist2]

7. ahhh so that's who he was. the food looked pretty darn good hehe n/t

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

3. My husband has an artichoke almost every evening

as a starter. He steams them for about an hour. First he trims off the top, then cuts the tops of the outer leaves. He sometimes tucks slivers of garlic between some of the leaves. He squirts lemon juice & drizzles a little olive oil over the top then puts them in the vegetable steamer. He usually eats it w/mayo.

He's been doing this for years. He is so particular when he buys them. Sometimes it drives me nuts. He will practically take the entire display apart looking for the best ones. He probably drives the produce people nuts, too.

best.

[Stinky The Clown]

6. This is pretty close to the way I do them

Except I use a pressure cooker. Maybe 25 - 30 minutes. I clean/trim 'em as you described. I leave a bit of the stem on and set them into the pressure cooked stem down, so they stand up. This requires that you have about 4 or 5 of them so they crowd the pressure cooked and keep them all upright.

The garlic and olive oil go on as you describe. Sometimes I use lemon, sometimes chopped herbs like fresh oregano and parsley. (You can also used dry, as the steaming more than gets them rehydrated!)

We've serve them with many condimenti. Plain melted butter. Garlic/herb butter. Garlic mayo. Herbed olive oil. A parmesan cheese dip.

As I type this it occurs to me that, in some ways, this is like serving mussels. The basic item is the same but the dip you use makes them very different from one preparation to the next.

When I want just hearts, I ususally just used canned or marinated (depends on what I'm making). With fresh, I love 'em just as God made 'em! I would *never* cook them just for the hearts.

[grasswire]

8. we like to serve them..

...room temperature with a curry mayo for dipping. Yum.

And Kroger was selling wonderful frozen artichoke hearts in 18 oz bags for $3.99. It was an outstanding bargain. But I haven't seen any for about a year.

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

9. for my husband no price is too high.

n/t

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

10. Stuffed artichokes!

I trim them as noted by others,

4 large artichokes

Then in a mxing bowl I add:
1 cup breadcrumbs
2 tbs chopped parsley
garlic powder
1 cup fresh grated parmesan

mix well and spoon between the large leaves

put two cups of water in the bottom of a large pot, with a tablespoon of olive oil. Squeeze the juice of half a lemon in the water and put the lemon half IN the water.

Bring to a boil then cover and simmer for 45 minutes

[LiberalinNC]

11. Baked garlic w/ Olive Oil

Dip the leaves in this mixture - yummy!!!!

[jpgray]

12. Artichoke hearts make a great pizza topping (nt)

[demnan]

13. Mine is pretty basic

Boil water and a couple of tablespoons olive oil, a stalk of celery, salt and a few cloves of garlic. Let that come to a boil before you put them in (usually it takes that long to trim two artichokes well with the kitchen shears.).

I like mine to cool to room temperature before I eat them and serve with plain mayo.

[mourningdove92]

14. I boil them with a little salt and a lot of garlic.

mmmmmmm....good stuff. Hard to get good artichokes in my part of the world, but when I seen them, I grab em.