The table was set, the black olive tapenade was made, and the next step was to prepare the Artichokes a la Provencale. Apparently people from Provence drink a lot of dry vermouth. I’d actually never made fresh artichokes before, and I wasn’t quite prepared for how prickly they can be. The purple insides were beautiful, though, and the recipe seemed very simple.
Ingredients:
8 artichokes
1 lemon
2 small onions, quartered
5 cloves of garlic, cut in half
a bay leaf
Fresh thyme
Salt and pepper
1 1/2 cups Nouilly Prat (dry vermouth…the most French part of the dish. Josée di Stasio gives white wine or white wine vinegar as suitable substitutes)
Water
The only labour-intensive part of this dish is trimming and preparing the artichokes. After that, they can be placed in the cooking pot with all the other ingredients and simply simmered for 25 minutes before serving.
Directions:
1. Break off the stems of the artichokes. Di Stasio says “If you want”, but I insist because otherwise your artichokes will never sit up straight in the pot, and certainly won’t be able to drown in the vermouth, which is what is desired.
2. Remove the base leaves of the artichokes (there are layers of leaves and the bottom ones can all be pulled off)
3. Cut off the top inch of the artichokes. Just slice it right off. There’s nothing edible there. Then cut off the pointy ends of the leaves around the sides. Rub the top and cut parts of the artichokes with lemon juice as you go. Don’t cut yourself or it will sting. Imagine what the artichoke is going through…It’s a plant, not an animal, Amie. It does not sting.
4. Get a small spoon down into the centre of the artichoke and scoop out the fuzz. This step will hurt a little if your artichokes aren’t perfectly ripe, at least that’s what I think happened. My spoon technique was sub-par and I had to try to get the fuzzy parts out with my hands. Not such a great idea, as it turned out. The ones that I think were purple and ripe had soft fuzzy bits that came out very easily, but the ones that were not purple inside didn’t really want to let go of their fuzzy bits, and felt that a good way to show their disdain for me trying to scalp them would be to poke my fingers. They didn’t bleed and nothing got stuck into them, but my hands stung for a while afterward, as if little pieces of invisible, needle-like fuzz were lodged inside.
5. Rub the fuzz-less inside with lemon juice (this is where it’ll hurt if you didn’t get all the fuzz out). Di Stasio says you can cut the artichoke in half to do this whole fuzz-scooping step, which makes everything ten times easier, but it will wreck the final presentation. This dinner was all about presentation. No half artichokes on plates. That’s like giving half a rose. Although now I think I would be forgiving of someone who gave me half a rose, if they’d had to cut it in half to get a thorn out.
6. Hard part’s done. Find a saucepan to fit the artichokes standing up. Remove the artichokes. Cover the bottom of the saucepan with oil, and now place the artichokes back in the pan. I don’t like di Stasio’s wording on this one (I used my own wording above). With hers it would be too easy to pour a bunch of olive oil and then try to fit the artichokes, only to discover they don’t quite fit. I got lucky, but that RARELY happens. Test the pan before you pour any oil.
7. Add everything else. The liquid should come two-thirds of the way up the side of the pan, so add enough water (or broth) until that’s the case. Since I was using water, I added a bit more Nouilly Prat as well, for flavour. The broth is supposed to be salty at this point, and it definitely wasn’t since I used water, so I added a bit more salt too. The problem here is that it’s hard to mix it into the broth very well, so you can only really make one adjustment. Guess right the first time, or suffer with under- or over-salted artichokes. It’s not the end of the world since you’re not going to drink the broth anyway. At least, that’s not how I was going to plate it.
8. Now leave the pot alone until 35 minutes before you want to serve the artichokes. I waited until guests arrived and then turned the heat up to medium-high, to bring the broth to a simmer.
9. Simmer 20-30 minutes and check that they’re done by pulling off one of the leaves of the base and tasting to see if it’s tender. You can also prick the bottom of the artichoke with a fork, but this seems malicious. I don’t know what you expect it to do in response besides getting angry.
To serve, I placed the artichokes on individual plates and dressed it with a little broth. The olive oil created a beautiful effect as it separated from the vermouth on the plate (like when balsamic vinegar separates from olive oil in a dish, but more subtle in colour). The inside of the artichokes were beautiful, and the elegance of the appetizer was just what I hoped.
So far so good. On to the main course.
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