My mother was a great home cook, Italian, born and raised in Connecticut. The one recipe she made that I loved but never bothered learning how to make, was Stuffed Artichokes. Normally, I don’t use anchovies much but I like them in this. I looked at various recipes on the internet and started with this one from NYT:
yield: 4 servings
- 4 large artichokes
- Lemon juice
- 2 cups bread crumbs, preferably fresh and fairly coarse
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 5 anchovy fillets, chopped
- ½ cup grated Parmesan
- ⅓ to ½cup chopped parsley
- Extra virgin olive oil
- I teaspoon soaked capers
(I wasn’t able to remove choke from raw artichokes)
- Step 1
Trim artichokes, snap off hard outside leaves, cut off top inch or so of pointy tips and cut off stem so that it is just about flush with base of leaves. Put stem end down and press on open end to force leaves open. Use your hands to expand that opening, then use a spoon to scrape out choke. As you finish with each artichoke, sprinkle it with lemon juice and set aside.
- Step 2
In a bowl, combine bread crumbs with remaining ingredients, including enough olive oil to moisten mixture. Stuff a portion of this into cavity of each artichoke, spreading some between leaves as well.
- Step 3
Steam artichokes on a rack over boiling water until tender, 30 to 45 minutes. Sprinkle with a little more olive oil and lemon juice. Serve hot, warm or at room temperature.
Other recipes added lemon zest (I know she didn’t add this) and crushed red peppers so I added. I thought 2 cups of bread crumbs (Panko) wasn’t enough so did 3 cups. Some recipes added beaten egg, I did not. (My daughter thinks she might have added this.)
Ever since I started roasting artichokes, this is the method I use: double wrap in heavy duty foil, 425 F for 1 hour 20 minutes, test to see if a leaf pulls out easily.
This time I used gorgeous purple artichokes (Special Buy) from Trader Joe. Next time: I will not soak the anchovies and capers and will use about 12 anchovies instead of the 8 I used. I didn’t want to use all olive oil to bind the stuffing so used some water, too. For some reason, the leaves spread out when the foil was removed. So, it was delicious but next time will be even better, I hope. I used a heaping teaspoon of red pepper flakes but next time it will be ¾ of a teaspoon!
I used Ortiz anchovies, which now cost over $15 for a small jar; what brand is a good, less expensive, substitute?
