How do I choose artichokes?
When you’re standing at the farmers market or grocery store contemplating which prickly, thorny, pointed artichokes you should select, look for those whose leaves are tightly closed and form snug, compact heads. Pass over any whose leaves are splayed in all directions. The leaves themselves ought to be green; any tinges of purple are fine but disregard any with brownish hues.
Pick up the artichoke and fondle it. The veggie ought to feel heavy in your hand. And rest assured that this is one of those things that, as with many things in life, you come to know and learn and appreciate with experience.
How do you eat an artichoke?
For these Italian-style braised artichokes, you can pull off the outer leaves and dip them in the braising sauce. Use your teeth to remove the soft pulpy section of the leaf at its base, then discard the remainder of the leaf. The soft center, or heart, is completely edible and can also be dipped in the sauce.
How can I tell when an artichoke is fully cooked?
Insert the tip of a sharp knife where the stem meets the leaves. When fully cooked, the knife should slide in easily, and the flesh of the artichoke should be tender.
When is artichoke season?
Artichokes have two peak seasons, one from March until June, and then again from September to October. They are most abundant during the spring.
What type of wine goes best with braised artichokes?
Artichokes, known as carciofi (car-choe-fee) in Italian, are indeed in profusion in Rome come spring and then again come early autumn. In the States, artichokes have a long season between those two peak Italian times.
Yet no matter when you indulge in them, they can be a little tricky to team with wine. This can be attributed to the presence of a pesky organic acid known as cynarin, which plays charades with your perception of taste and makes pretty much everything seem strangely sweet for a short while.
It’s a fluke that’s earned artichokes the term “wine sinners,” though that’s not to say you need to do penance and shun wine with your carciofi. Nooooo. You just need to choose it a little more carefully than usual.
A dry white wine typically does the trick, whether a Sauvignon blanc, a Chenin blanc, or a Vouvray. If you’d like to stick with something Italian, there’s the Villa Simone Frascati suggested by the editors of Gourmet. In their words, it’s “the classic white of the Lazio region that surrounds Rome–light, thirst-quenching, and aromatic.”
David Leite
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