Artichokes

Last week for the first time in my life I cooked fresh artichokes. They were really cheap at the Farmer's Market so I thought why not. Having heard all these stories about how difficult they are to cook I did a search on the Internet and found an excellent site from Ocean Mist Farms.

After watching two or three of their videos on how to prepare artichokes and went ahead and tried myself. Cutting of the top, into a big pot of boiling water with lots of salt. Boil for around 30-35 minutes or until stem is soft. While the artichokes were boiling I mixed butter, salt, black-pepper and a squeeze of lemon.

The artichokes were done when the stem was soft and I could pull out the leaves without any problems. Still steaming hot I pulled out a leaf and dipped it in the butter mix. Oh My God, for a while I thought I had died and gone to heaven. The artichoke melted in my mouth and the butter and spices mixed very well with that slightly tart taste from the leave. So I had another leaf and another one and another one. Suddenly I realised I eaten a full artichoke standing next to the kitchen sink. For the next one I sat down by the kitchen table, and I'm sure I said plenty of ohh-s and aah-s, because fresh boiled artichoke was plain delicious. It's probably a bit an acquired taste, but when you get it you get it. And it's well worth a try and not difficult at all to cook.