How to Cook and Eat an Artichoke

I can imagine, that if you did n’t grow up eating artichokes and if you were encountering them for the first time, they might seem a little intimidate !

Reading: How to Cook and Eat an Artichoke

How one cook and eats an artichoke is not obvious from its appearance .

The artichoke is actually the bud of a thistle—a flower. The leaves ( called “ bracts ” ) cover a bleary concentrate called the “ choke ”, which sits on top of a meaty effect, called the “ heart ” .

The heart is wholly comestible ( and amazingly delectable ). The fuzzed suffocate is besides hempen to eat in regular artichokes, but edible in baby artichokes. All but the inmost leaves are baffling and you have to scrape them with your teeth to eat the tender parts .

video recording : How to Cook and Eat an Artichoke

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How to Cook and Eat an Artichoke

You can boil, grill, braise, or stuff and bake artichokes. But my darling direction to cook artichokes, and the easiest way to cook them, is to steam them. I find that boiling artichokes tends to water-log them, but steaming artichokes cooks them with fair the right sum of moisture .

The succeed is a method I ‘ve been been using to steam artichokes for more than 30 years. I add a bay leaf, some garlic, and a slice of lemon to the steaming water to infuse the artichokes with even more spirit.

You can steam artichokes on the stovetop or in a imperativeness cooker. A press cooker will cook the artichokes faster, but you do have less dominance over the result, and it ‘s easy to over-cook them .

How to Choose Which Artichokes to Buy

here are a few guidelines for what to look for when shopping for artichokes :

Choose artichokes that feel heavy when you pick them up. If they feel light, they’re probably a bit dried out and not as meaty as they should be.
If you squeeze the artichoke, the leaves should “squeak”. This is another way you can tell the artichoke is fresh.
The leaves should be closed with just a little separation, not flayed wide open. Remember an artichoke is a flower bud, as it ages, the leaves open up. So an artichoke with wide open leaves may be on the old side.
“Frost kissed” is a-okay. If an artichoke looks like it has been burned by frost, no worries. In fact, these less-than-beautiful artichokes can taste even better than those not touched by frost and often command a premium price because of it.