Gnotes From A Gnostic Gourmand (Best of FP Series)
I know, it’s more recycling but it’s topical, so I figured it’d be a good time to pull some of these old posts out of the cedar chest and toss ‘em on the grill. There were quite a few posts on fantastic planet about cooking delicious foods, and so that they’re not lost in the sands of time, I’ve scrunched them all together. Since Andrea’s working on a Gnostic cookbook, and Donald continues his explorations of the intersections of palate and pastoralism (forgive me!), it seems like it’s a good time. Enjoy!
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1. Brined Turkey
2. Mackerel
3. Dandelion Salsa
4. Organic Foods
5. Redneck Sushi
6. Scotch Eggs
7. Collard Greens
8. Potstickers
9. Artichokes
Seein’ as how T-day is two days away, I’ve noticed a couple of folks looking for my recipe for brined turkey. So, in the interest of the public good, here’s the recipe in full, reprinted from a previous post:
If you’re interested in eating a succulent and mouth-wateringly flavorful turkey this Thanksgiving, you should really consider brining that sucker! It’s very easy, and the payoff is high-quality bird that’s absolutely shockingly delicious.
Here’s how it’s done.
You’ll need:
One (organic, cornfed, free-range, of course) turkey, NOT self-basting or Kosher
Water
A turkey-sized container of some kind
Salt, and lots of it
Boullion cubes
Various spices and sundries
Lots of room in your fridge
A cup of butter
A cheesecloth or clean, disposable towel
1. Make sure your turkey is clean and completely thawed!
2. The night before you’re going to cook your turkey, place the bird in a massive container, big enough that the turkey can be completely covered by the brine.
3. Begin boiling your water in a stock-pot. You can also use a number of smaller pots if they’re all you have on-hand.
4. When the water reaches boiling point, turn off the heat and begin adding salt to the water. You’re going for a ratio of about 3/4 of a cup per gallon of water. If you’d like to check whether the water is salty enough, drop in a raw egg (in the shell). Does the egg float? If so, you have plenty of salt in your brine.
5. Add your boullion cubes, about two per gallon of water. Add whatever other spices you’d like to seep into your turkey. I like some rosemary, some sage, some pepper. Add enough spices that the brine gives off a heavenly aroma.
6. Turn off the brine and (this is important) LET IT COOL DOWN! If you’re in a hurry, you can drop some ice-cubes into the brine, or put your stock-pot in a sink full of ice, or stick it in the fridge, but it’s best to just let it sit and cool off, which takes a while. It has to cool off because you don’t want to start pre-cooking the bird!
7. When the brine is cooled to room temperature, pour it over your turkey. Cover it completely.
8. Let it sit, in the fridge, for 8-12 hours.
9. When it’s done brining, remove the turkey and wash it off. Discard the brine.
10. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
11. Melt the butter on low, and soak the cheesecloth or towel in the butter.
12. Stick about six garlic cloves underneath the skin of the turkey. Place the bird on the roaster, and cover it with the butter-soaked towel. DO NOT STUFF YOUR TURKEY. Cooking your stuffing in the turkey causes problems. It makes the cooking time all wonky and you run the risk of cold stuffing in a hot bird, which puts off everybody.
13. When the oven reaches 450, put the bird in for a half-hour. After the half hour, take out the bird and cover it *LOOSELY* with a sheet of aluminium foil. Reduce the heat to 325, and place the bird back in the oven.
14. Baste your bird frequently. Once every half hour should do fine– don’t do it too much or you’ll interrupt the cooking process. This sounds pretty frequent, but if you remember to baste it eash time you go into the kitchen to refill your wine glass, you should be okay.
15. (Optional) If you would like to put a mild glaze on your turkey, here’s a neat one. Mix together about 1/2 cup of honey and 1/4 cup of tamarind syrup with a couple of teaspoons of olive oil. Coat the turkey in glaze about 45 minutes before it comes out the oven. Glazing isn’t imperative, but it can add some extra crispiness to the turkey skin.
16. If you have a meat thermometer, remove the bird when it reads about 180 degrees in the leg joint. It should take anywhere from 3-6 hours depending on how big your bird is. You can estimate an hour for every three pounds or so. Another way to check for done-ness is to stick a fork in the thickest part of the turkey. Are the juices clear? Then your turkey is done!
Enjoy your deliciously brined turkey, and impress your friends and family with your mad brining skills!
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Eat Some Mackerel!
Don’t be frightened
Don’t be scared
Chop off their heads
And little legs
Then peel away the shell
And open up your senses to the smell
The sound and colour
Touch and taste
Of crab, cod, clams and kippers
Scampi, squid, sole, shark and scallop
Winkles, whelks, whale and whiting
Seaweed, swordfish, sardines and sea urchin
Haddock, halibut, herrings and eel
Cockles, mussels, mackerel and veal
Pilchard, plankton, St Peter’s fish and plaice
Octopussy jellyfishy
And dolphin’s an aquired taste
“Who will have a fishy
On a little dishy?
I will have a fishy
When the boat comes in…”
– “A Seafood Song” by The Divine Comedy
One of my favorite kinds of sushi is the delectable saba, salt-cured mackerel. It’s one of those love-it-or-hate-it fish, and if it’s good, it’s delicious, but if it’s bad, it can taste like something spit up by the cat. I often use saba as a litmus test when I try a new sushi joint; the fresher and tastier it is, the better the restaurant will be.
There’s a reason it’s important that mackerel is extremely fresh when served (unless salt-cured): it’s highly suceptible to scombroid food poisoning, a rather nasty condition that will leave one quite uncomfortable for a few hours. Like most forms of food poisoning, it’s fairly unlikely that you’ll contract it, but if you do, you’ll know a couple of hours after eating when you start to get abdominal pain and facial irritation, so better safe than sorry. For this reason, it’s best to buy it fresh and cook it that day, or frozen. If frozen, it should be prepared as soon as possible after defrosting.
Too often in modern society, the fish that we eat consists of nicely cut and filleted white or pink slabs, devoid of anything resembling an actual fish. Since, however, many fish are relatively easy to clean, those who wish something more of a connection to the food they eat might find purchasing and preparing whole fish far more palatable than, say, a whole hog or a chicken. Granted, most of us don’t have much of an opportunity to catch the fish we eat, so cleaning the whole fish is the best option we have.
If you’re willing to eat meat, you should be willing, at some point or another, to acknowledge that what you eat has eyeballs that need to be removed, especially in our culture where so much that we remove from meat is simply discarded. As a soon-to-be pescatarian (more on that later), I’ve found that mackerel, which requires same-day preparation, is readily available whole, and is a great, delicious way to enjoy the preparation of fish from the cleaning stage through.
My favorite way to cook fish is on the grill, and if you’re going to grill fish, you really need a fish grill:
This is especially true for the more delicate whitefish (like mackerel) who don’t have the extra layers of skin and fat like such common grill-faves like salmon, which protect them from getting so flaky that they fall into the flames and simply can’t be turned.
For this fairly simple recipe, here’s what you’ll need:
1 mackerel, small to medium, whole
the juice of 1/2 of a lime
four cloves garlic
1 tsp thyme
1/4 cup sea salt
1/4 cup butter or butter alternative
salt, pepper to taste
GRILLED MACKEREL:
1. The first step will of course be cleaning the fish. For those who haven’t ever done so, it’s relatively easy provided you have a nice, sharp knife. You’ll want to clean the fish outside and immediately dispose of any unwanted parts (although you might consider freezing the parts to make a lovely fish broth at a later date).
Trust your nose: if your fish smells off, even slightly, toss it. Better safe than sorry. The old canard about fish smell is right on; the “fishier” it smells, the older it is. A really good, fresh (saltwater) fish should smell slightly of the ocean, but not strongly of fish.
Dry the mackerel as much as possible, and remove the head and tail with a cleaver. When removing the head, start your cut behind the gills. With a kitchen shears or a small deboning knife (or paring knife if you don’t have the other two), remove the fins.
Now, beginning at either the head or tail of the fish, slice lengthwise down the length of the fish’s underside (but not all the way through) and scoop out the entrails in the stomach cavity, which can be discarded or saved for broth (or given to the cat who loves such things). Open the fish so it lays like a butterfly. Trim any excess fat or gristle from the perimeter of the fish– the gill areas in particular are usually pretty bony and gristly.
Now, since we’re grilling this guy in our fish grill, we won’t really need to worry about fileting. Nonetheless, we can remove any noticeable rib bones by gently sliding the blade of our knife under the bone and popping it out. We can also very gently cut around the spine and remove it. Be sure the fish is completely free of viscera (as much as possible) and any leftover blood, and pat the meat as dry as possible.
2. When the fish is clean, rub 1/4 cup of salt into the meat of the fish, which helps reduce some of the excess liquid, and provides a kind of mini-cure for the quick marinade. Next, rub the meat with the pepper and thyme. Crush the garlic cloves and place them into the center of the fish. Finally, pour on the lime juice, allowing it to soak into the flesh. The lime juice serves two purposes: it adds to the flavor, and also begins the cooking process via acid.
(An aside– never overlook the beauty of citrus as a pre-grilling marinade for this very reason, especially with chicken and fish.)
When you’ve finished this preparation, close the two sides of the fish and wrap it tightly in plastic wrap, and let it sit in the fridge for at least an hour.
3. After the mackerel is done marinating, remove it from its plastic wrap and re-open it. Dab the butter over the surface of the fish– don’t skimp on the butter! At this point, you could stuff the fish with all kinds of different goodies– cheese, salsa, breadcrumbs, etc.– or just go with the butter, as mackerel has a nice flavor that doesn’t need too much augmentation.
4. Rub your fish griller with oil, “close” the fish, put it in the griller, and cook it on the grill on partially direct high heat. Keep an eye on it and turn it pretty often. Here’s what will happen as it cooks: the butter will melt into the meat, and will also drip into the flames, which will shoot up and char the skin. I’m one of those flip-happy grillers, and this is a good case where flipping every three or four minutes really helps the cooking process.
It should be done in about ten to fifteen minutes, depending on the size of the fish. Remove from the grill, open the fish, and enjoy with a squeeze of fresh lime juice.
Eat some mackerel today!
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Regular readers may remember last season’s “In Praise of the Humble Dandelion,” in which I extol upon the virtues of this lovely little flower, so reviled by modern green-grass suburbanites. Well, spring has arrived in Seattle, and with it our yellow-headed friends have pushed their heads out of the soil and into our bellies. This is the best time of year for dandelion greens, especially if you like to use them raw. You can literally pick them from your yard, wash them off, and eat them in salads. (Of course, as I’ve stated previously, don’t use yard dandelions from chemically treated lawns or otherwise heavily polluted areas.) When looking for yummy greens, pick the leaves that are greenest/youngest, and discard leaves with discolorations or any kind of yellowing.
Optionally, you can also probably pay about $4/lb for some dandelion greens at your local hoity-toity health food market.
This past weekend, I was able to harvest an incredible number of greens, and whipped up this yummy little salsa. As it turns out, dandelion greens are perfect for a quick salsa, as they have a rather sharp, somewhat radishy flavor that really augments traditional salsa mixes. Try this at your next summer barbecue and see if your guests can guess the “secret ingredient!”
You’ll need:
– About 1/4 to 1/2 lb. fresh dandelion greens, washed thoroughly and ripped into pieces.
– 6 oz. (or so) of fresh tomatoes or tomato juice.
– One sweet pear.
– Three medium cloves of garlic.
– 1/2 of a medium yellow onion.
– 1/4 cup of lemon juice.
– 3 tablespoons of hot pepper sauce (tabasco et al), or to taste.
Puree everything together in a blender or food processor and serve cold with chips.
You could also simply chop all of this up and serve it as a pico de gallo sauce.
Eat some dandelion green salsa today!
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Some Organic Foods Do Indeed Taste Better
Tim’s post on organic tuna and pb & j got me thinking about what kinds of foods do taste better in organic varieties. I left these thoughts in the comments, but wanted to move them here, too.
Like Tim, I’m no organic food snob. I try my darndest to eat as much organic food as is possible (and affordable), and even take advantage of the wonderful Pioneer Organics service, which delivers fresh, in-season organic items to your door every two weeks (if you live in Seattle, Pioneer Organics is a really convenient, and actually pretty inexpensive way to get organic veggies). In a pinch, however, if a recipe calls for something that’s out of season (or if I’m hungry for something in particular), I’ll base my decision on my current finances first and foremost. Unfortunately, organic foods are still a bit out of the average person’s price range.
There are two foods I can think of, though, that simply must be organic for me to consider purchasing. The main one is eggs. After having “organic,” cage-free, grain-fed eggs, I will never, ever go back to non-organic again if i can help it. I had chickens as a kid & remember the difference between the fresh eggs we’d get from the henhouse and the plasticy crap found in grocery stores.
It’s funny when I think about it. Most people, when cooking eggs, use them as a kind of flavorless ‘base’ that exists to provide substance to whatever gets added. Most cheese omelets taste like cheese; most scrambled eggs taste like salt and pepper; most fried eggs taste like bacon grease. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I think it’s because non-organic eggs don’t actually taste very good! Organic, cage-free, grain-fed, etc. eggs, on the other hand, taste like eggs are supposed to taste.
I highly encourage anyone who likes eggs to try a taste-test. Take two eggs, one organic and one non-, and prepare them scrambled in a pan. Use just a drizzle of olive oil at the bottom, and add nothing but a tiny, tiny pinch of salt when scrambling them. No cheese, no pepper, no nothin’ but egg, an itty-bitty drip of oil, and twenty grains of salt. When you can compare the two, side by side, you’ll see what I mean.
Oh, the other things that taste better organic are veggies with skins, like tomatoes, green peppers, eggplants, etc. I don’t exactly know why– I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical scientific reason they taste better but I don’t know what it is. It’s just overly noticable– biting into a non-organic tomato generally leaves one with a mouthful of weird grainy mush, but a good organic tomato is soooo delicious. Non-organic green peppers might as well be made of the wax they tend to resemble, but try sauteeing organic green peppers and onions in a little bit of butter next time you make burgers– hallelujah!
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My friend Thom introduced me to Redneck Sushi, and now any special grilling occasion features these delectable little wonders. Yesterday was so beautiful and warm that we dusted off the ol’ grill and whipped some up. Here’s how to do it!
You’ll need:
1/2 package thick-cut bacon
1 bunch green asparagus
bamboo skewers
Be sure your asparagus are in season! They should be crisp & sweet– the thinner the stalk, the better.
Alas for my veggie friends– though I do try to come up with veggie versions of the recipes I post here, this one does require honest-to-goodness bacon. Veggie bacon substitutes don’t contain enough genuine pig to embrace the asparagus just right.
1. Soak your skewers in water for about an hour before using them– this keeps them from catching on fire on the grill and burning your goodies.
2. Snap your asparagus. Here’s a trick for getting rid of the tough, stringy, woody part of the asparagus. Hold the stalk at both ends and bend. The stalk will naturally snap into two pieces. Discard the bottom piece. Easy, & works every time!
3. Chop the asparagus stalks into 1-1/2 to 2 inch pieces.
4. Cut each slice of bacon in half in the middle– should result in 3-4 inch slices of bacon.
5. Collect four or five pieces of asparagus, and, holding them together, roll them into one of the strips of bacon. Carefully push two skewers through the roll, pinning the asparagus/bacon structure together. (The extra skewer is to prevent the rolls from flipping over if you turn them.)
6. Repeat step five until you’ve used all of your ingredients.
7. Cook over indirect medium/medium-high heat on the grill, flipping once halfway through. The bacon fat should get soft and surround the asparagus, sealing each roll together.
8. Remove rolls from skewers, serve and let the mouth-watering bacon/asparagus combination rock your world.
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For a while back during college, I worked the day shift as a cook in a British Pub. It was one of those cheesy American institutions: a clap-trap Tudor knock-off with a decrepit & rusted double-decker bus out past the tiny local airport. It had a cockney-redneck aesthetic, and was run by a pill-popping ex-pat from Bristol named Anne who permenantly looked as though she’d swallowed a live goldfish, all pop-eyed and tense. Every Fourth of July she’d hang a sign out front that read “Happy Birthday USA. Love, Mom.”
Inside, however, it was actually pretty nice. We catered mainly to the almost insignificant North Florida UK crowd and the vast crowd of anglophiles that lurk around the outskirts of society in any college town, loudly declaring their love of football and Bottington’s and saying stupid garbage in appaling British accents like, “Monty Python’s okay, but give me the Blackadder any day, old chap.”
If nothing else, the food was terrific, traditional British fare for those inclined to find such stuff agreeable. People always complain that British cuisine is way too bland. This isn’t necessarily the case: nothing is too bland when drowned in HP sauce and served with a side of Branston pickle. Bangers and Mash, Cornish pasties, steak and kidney pie (or shepherd’s pie for the less adventurous), beer battered fish and chips, even the ploughman’s lunch, all were served and relished by our regular crowd of drunken Englishmen and wannabe Americans.
The star item on our menu was the Scotch Egg, a wonderful orb of artery-clogging goodness that is certainly only for the strong of heart, both literally and figuratively. As the name implies, the Scotch Egg actually hails from Scotland. It’s traditionally served cold, but it’s also delicious piping hot. It’s HORRIBLE for you– absolutely horrible! But, it’s also one of the most delicious conglomerates of protein and oil for those of us who occasionally like to indulge in the pleasures of gustatory hedonism.
Here’s how to make it:
INGREDIENTS:
- Hardboiled eggs (however many you think your arteries can handle)
- Ground pork breakfast sausage (about 1/2 cup per egg). For fun, you can substitute any kind of sausage: Italian, Chorizo, etc. Has to be pork, though– beef won’t do the trick. Our veggie friends can substitute Gimmee Lean Fake Sausage, which is actually pretty tasty. Of course, eating a vegetarian Scotch Egg is kind of like smoking an ultralight cigarette. It’s got less tar, but it ain’t any less dangerous.
- 2 cups Breadcrumbs, unseasoned.
- Your favorite cooking oil in deep-fryer quantity.
- A deep fryer or a deep pot in which you can completely submurge the eggs in the hot oil.
INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Hard-boil the eggs, and allow them to cool. Peel them and set them aside.
2. Mix the ground pork and about 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs together.
3. Turn on your fryer/begin heating your oil. If you’re doing it on the stovetop, be very, very careful to heat the oil *slowly* so it doesn’t spatter– start on a low setting and gradually increase the heat. It takes longer, but it’s better than having hot grease hit you in the eye. It’s hot enough when you can flick a drop of water in and hear a sizzle.
4. Carefully coat each egg with a layer of the sausage/breadcrumb mixture, packing it tightly around the egg. No white should show through the sausage barrier, and it should be as even as possible. About 1/8 to 1/4 inch thickness is all you want.
5. When the egg is coated, roll it in breadcrumbs and drop it into the hot oil.
6. Cook until done, about 8-10 minutes per egg depending on your oil temperature. The egg should be golden-brown and the sausage should be cooked all the way through. I sometimes toss an extra ball of sausage in with the eggs to pull out and test for done-ness before removing the suckers.
7. Refrigerate for a couple of hours to serve cold in the traditional fashion, or serve piping hot and greasy.
Scotch eggs MUST be served with HP sauce. If you absolutely can’t find HP sauce in your backwater berg, you can substitute A1 steak sauce for a slightly dissimilar flavor.
Now enjoy the Scotch eggs experience! Scotch eggs prove a Law that arises time and time again in certain fringe culinary circles: anything whatsoever tastes good when wrapped in pork sausage and deep-fried.
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Kevin has a recipe for collard greens up at cryptogon that, as a southerner, makes me cringe in horror. It’s not that it’s a *bad* recipe; it would probably be quite good, especially with the stinky goat cheese. But, boiling collard greens for five minutes results in *severely* undercooked greens, which can be exceptionally bitter and difficult to digest.
Here’s how you *really* make collard greens, southern style. It takes a LONG time to cook ‘em, so these are best for an all-day event like a holiday or Sunday dinner. I’ll start with the meaty variety and then add the vegetarian alternative below. (This is what’s nice about having a vegetarian wife– I always know how to make two versions!):
You’ll need a bunch of greens, a half-pound of super-thick bacon or salt-pork (or if you wanna be healthy, canadian bacon has less fat than salt-pork), lemon juice, white vinegar, salt, pepper and some kind of red hot sauce, preferably tabasco but louisiana hot sauce is also wonderful.
1. Take your bunch of greens and cut them into strips, removing the stems (the stems can be stringy and tough). Wash them and dry them, either by air or in a salad spinner, and set them aside.
2. Chop your salt-pork/bacon into chunks about a half-inch square.
3. Add about a half-inch of water to the bottom of a deep saute pan (or another deep pot of some kind). Bring the water to a boil, and add a half cup of lemon juice and the salt-pork. Simmer, covered, on low, for at least 45 minutes, adding additional water as needed. You want to maintain about a half-inch.
4. After about 45 minutes, add the greens and a half-cup of white vinegar. Now simmer the whole mixture, covered, for 2 hours on low heat, stirring and adding water or vinegar as needed. About fifteen minutes before you remove the greens, salt and pepper the greens to taste, and add a few teaspoons of hot sauce.
5. Before serving, you can remove the salt-pork or leave it in depending on your preference. I tend to remove the fattier pieces but leave a bit of the meat in with the greens for additional taste. When you serve it, be sure to include some of the juices, which are delicious and nutrient-rich and yummy when soaked up by bread!
VEGETARIAN VARIATION:
It’s basically the same, but instead of salt pork, use diced bits of tempeh.
1. Marinate the tempeh in 3 parts Braggs Liquid Aminos and one part soy sauce for at least 45 minutes.
2. Add the same amount of water to your saute pan, but toss in two cubes of vegetable boullion (or use two cups of liquid veggie broth). Bring to a boil, add the tempeh, and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes.
3. After the tempeh has simmered, follow steps four and five above.
And that’s all there is to it!
I especially enjoy eating collards with rice and black-eyed peas (”Hoppin’ John“), but they’re good with just about anything.
“Boil for five minutes”– yech!
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It’s SUPER easy to make delicious potstickers at home. It doesn’t even take very long! Here’s how:
You’ll need flour (unbleached, of course), water, a little salt, some yummy veggies like carrots and cabbage and onions, some ground meat if you’re into that kind of thing (essentially whatever you’d like to stuff into the potstickers), a cookie cutter, some wax paper, some sesame or olive oil, soy sauce, and some white or rice vinegar.
1. Mix some flour and water and a pinch of salt at about a 1 to 1/2 ratio, and really work it together until it’s a doughy consistency.
2. Let the dough hang out for a few minutes while you prepare your filling. Chop your veggies into itty-bitty pieces (a food processor helps) and mix in whatever delicious ingredients you happen to have around the fridge. If you’re using meat and you’re worried about trichinosis and whatnot, you can pre-cook the meat a tad bit. (Here’s a tip: If you’re using chicken, don’t worry about pre-cooking it on the stove, just marinate it in lemon juice for half an hour beforehand– the acid in the lemon starts the cooking process).
3. When you’re mixture is all . . . er . . . mixed, grab about a tablespoon of dough and make it into a ball. Stick it between two pieces of wax paper and roll or smash it into a vaguely circular shape. You want it to be pretty thin, about 1/8 of an inch (or thinner, if you can do it).
4. Put about a teaspoon of the mixture into the center of your circle shape (not too much!) and fold it over so it’s a half circle. Close the sides by mashing them together with the tines of a fork, which gives them that neat little ridged shape on the side. Be sure they’re completely sealed, or you’ll get oil inside your potstickers.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until all of your mixture is done (or until you’re ready to cook).
6. Now’s the fun part! Put about 2 cups of water on to boil in a sauce pan. Meanwhile, cover the bottom of a sauteing pan (or deep skillet– you shouldn’t use a frying pan because you need high-ish sides) in sesame oil (if you prefer a stronger, nuttier flavor) or olive oil (An olive oil note: never use extra virgin for cooking– it’s only good for dressings and dips and sauces). When the oil is hot enough that a drop of watter starts to sizzle, add a layer of your potstickers and let ‘em cook for just a few minutes, until they start to get a tad bit crispy on the bottom. Then, take your boiling water and VERY slowly and carefully pour it over the tops of the potstickers, being extremely careful to avoid spatters. What happens is this: the boiling water floats on top of the oil, so the bottom of the potstickers get crispy and the tops stay soft and moist! Put a lid on it, turn the heat down just a tad bit, and let it cook for another couple of minutes.
Voila! Yummy potstickers that are crispy on one side and soft on the other!
Now make a dipping sauce! Mix together one part soy sauce and one part rice or white vinegar.
That’s it! Make some tonight and impress your friends!
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Mmmm, artichokes. I LOVE ‘em. Take the yummy artichoke (an edible flower, believe it or not!) and snip the stalk so it’s flat. Then pull off the bottom leaves until you get the slightly smaller, tenderer ones. With a crazy sharp knife, cut off about the top 1/4 of the artichoke, and, using kitchen scissors, cut the pointy bits off of the rest of the leaves.
You can then boil them for about 20 minutes and dip the leaves in lemon & butter, or you can stuff them and pressure cook them (if you don’t have a pressure cooker, you’re REALLY missing out on the best cooking device ever invented). To stuff them, open the leaves slightly and pour a liberal dose of olive oil over the suckers. Mix up a bunch of Italian-seasoned breadcrumbs with a little bit of salt and some fresh garlic. Then, with a teaspoon, stuff the breadcrumb mixture in between the leaves. For extra fun, take some grated cheese (parmesan or pecorino work especially well) and stuff the center of the artichoke.
Cover the bottom 1/2 inch of your pressure cooker with water, and pressure cook on high for about ten minutes.
To eat the artichoke, create a yummy dip out of cheese, or butter or oil or lemon juice or balsamic vinegar, and begin removing the outer leaves of the artichoke, scraping the ‘meat’ (and stuffing) with your teeth. Yum! Eventually you’ll end up at the “hair” in the middle, which should be scraped out with a spoon (a grapefruit spoon works incredibly well). The “heart” is the remainder, and should be relished, one bite at a time. Allow the delicate sweetness of the artichoke heart to settle on your tongue!
