What’s Cooking Wednesday - Artichokes

It’s spring and artichokes are in season.  It’s such a delight to see them in the verdulerias, next to the sweet, dark red strawberries that have recently arrived as well.  Unlike the commercially produced artichokes you see at major grocery stores, the ones I buy here in the verduleria still have their long stems attached to them and give off a fresh fragrance that makes me almost want to eat them right there.

The artichoke, native to the Mediterranean, was apparently first developed in Sicily, and was evident in Greek and Roman literature as early as 70AD.  If you have ever seen a field of artichokes it is a beautiful thing - these large thistle plants grow on thick stems, and almost make me think of sunflowers (though perhaps not as tall).

I recently found a recipe for spring artichokes cooked in white wine and tossed with tagliatelle.  (Recipe link below.)  I thought I’d give it a try, but of course I wound up doing my own thing.  The recipe is a good guideline though, and was very inspiring.

I of course made my own pasta by hand, because I like to and I had a special dinner guest. :-)  But if you’d rather buy your tagliatelle and you want to know what pasta I like in Buenos Aires, I think the Don Vicente brand is pretty good (their pastas are made with egg), and if you would rather just use a good semolina pasta (without egg), Lucchetti is a good brand that is of similar quality to Barilla.

The original recipe can be found here.

I should note that I didn’t use mint as the recipe called for.  I forgot to buy it and I still had some sage left, so I added sage instead, while the artichokes were cooking.

First I cleaned and prepared the artichokes - it’s important to clean them well if you buy them from the verduleria because they are organic and therefore sometimes little bugs like to hang out in them.  Tap the artichoke a few times upside down to get any bugs out and rinse it well.  Take all the leaves off until you get to the artichoke heart.  Next, cut the heart into a few sections.

I heated three tablespoons of olive oil with two minced cloves of garlic.  I added the prepared artichoke hearts and fried for about a minute.  Then I poured in a good amount of Torrontes (an Argentine white wine), added salt, covered the pan (I used a large wok), and checked on them once in a while.

In the meantime I cooked the pasta in salted, boiling water (follow the instructions on your package).

Once the artichokes were done (I could easily put a fork into them), I tossed them with the cooked and drained pasta and a bit of extra virgin olive oil.  Topped with some parmigiano (or whatever grated cheese you can get your hands on), this made for an excellent meal.  I want to make it again!

P.S. I didn’t use as many artichokes as the recipe called for.  Use just as many as you think you’ll need.

P.P.S.  Someone suggested using the artichoke hearts preserved in a jar.  The problem with that is that the artichokes need to be fresh (and not all soft and mushy lik the jar ones) so they can really soak up the wine and cook in it.  I guess if you got the jar ones you could just use less wine and it might be good.  If anyone tries this, please let me know how it turned out.