Pre­pared Artichokes


With a ser­rat­ed knife (it’s faster), cut off the top of each arti­choke about an inch down.  Cut off the stem to leave about an inch.  Pull off the low­est dry leaves and dis­card, stop­ping when you get to nice, fresh, tight leaves.  With scis­sors, snip off the top 1/2 inch or so of every sin­gle leaf.  Place arti­chokes stem-down in a saucepan in which they will fit tight­ly so they don’t roll around, and for which you have a lid.  Pour water into the bot­tom of the saucepan and steam the arti­chokes for about 35 min­utes or until leaves pull out eas­i­ly.  Check the pan fre­quent­ly as I don’t think I have EVER steamed arti­chokes with­out burn­ing the pan dry at least once.  It can be hard to clean.

When the arti­chokes are cooked and can be han­dled, serve them with a bowl for the dis­card­ed leaves, and with either melt­ed but­ter or a mus­tardy vinai­grette.  To eat them, pull off each leaf, dip into what­ev­er, and scrape the meat off with your teeth, just at the end where the leaf was attached.  When you run out of leaves, you’ll be down to the “choke,” a thistly nasty thing at the cen­ter of the arti­choke.  Cut this off with a knife and you’re left with the meaty heart. which is heav­en­ly dipped into the but­ter or dress­ing and eat­en luxuriously.

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