Artichoke is the queen of spring. It needs time and courage to peel it but the result is wonderful!
ingredients for 4 servings (cost about 6€ pp)
- 8 artichokes
- 2 lemons
- 8 slices of coppa, speck or prosciutto
- 240 g carnaroli rice
- A small glass white wine
- 1,2 litre vegetable stock
- EV sunflower oil
- 1 medium onion
- Salt
- 40 g butter
- 40 g Parmigiano or Grana cheese
- a small bunch chervil
“When I was young it was more important, pain more painful …………….”
Actually I wanted to write that when I was young I hated artichokes but I remembered the Animals’ classic song. By the way, the last 40 years of my life I try to decide which is the greatest singer of all times, Eric Burdon or Robert Plant but I never reach to a stable decision.
Anyway, the reason I hated artichokes is clear. Artichokes (which are also expensive for their real net weight) are difficult to be prepared for cooking. The wild ones have also spines, but even the cultivated ones need intense peeling etc.
But as years go by, pain becomes less painful so 15 years ago I decided to start cooking artichokes. I ll try to describe you, how do we have to prepare them.
Well, artichokes are flowers with very very hard petals which for the majority of cases (but not always) must be removed and discarded. We can eat only the lower part of the flower and the stalk.
So, first of all we prepare a solution with the juice of 2 lemons (or even better limes) and 1 litre water. If we don’t want to use our pretty organic and expensive lemons for this job we can buy vitamin C tablets from the pharmacy. The reason for all this mess is the tense of the artichokes to lose their brilliant opal colour and turn grey, when exposed to air.
We catch an artichoke and we cut its stalk. With a peeler we remove all the fibre part of the stalk (attention that it is deeper than the surface) and we drop it, without delay into the lemon solution.
When we finish with the stalks we catch an artichoke flower and with the hand we peel the lower layers of petals. When the internal lower part of the flower is visible, we catch a knife and we cut and discard the upper part of the flower. Have in mind that the part that must be discarded is about the 3/4 of the whole flower.
Without delay with a small knife we remove the outer-hard part of the flower, which is found near the stalk and with a spoon we remove the inner hairy part of it.
That was all. Now the artichoke is ready to be cooked. Next stage is to boil them in salty water for about 10 minutes. We cut them in pieces and we keep them aside.
In a cold pan and using very low temperatures we add the slices of cold cut and we cook them till crispy. We remove the solid parts and we keep the liquid fats. We mince the 4 crispy slices.
In the same pan we start our risotto by preparing the well known soffritto. So we cut the onion in very small dice and we gently fry them in the cold cut fats (we add some EV sunflower oil, if necessary) for about 10 minutes.
Meanwhile:
a) We bring the stock to a boil
b) In a small pan we lightly toast the rice WITH NO FAT AT ALL
When the rice is so hot, that we cannot keep it in our hands, we add it inside the pan with the soffritto. We also pour in the wine and then we start cooking the risotto, adding a ladle of very hot – boiling stock, whenever the liquid starts to get reduced.
While the rice is being prepared, we finely grate the cheese and we chop the chervil.
When the rice is prepared (al dente of course), we remove the pan from the stove.
We start adding the minced cold cuts, the chopped chervil, the artichoke stalks and flowers, the butter and the cheese, while stirring constantly. We continue stirring, until we obtain a very creamy result, we cover the pan with a lid and we let it stand for 3 minutes. We taste the salt and, if needed, we add some more.
After this time, we stir again and we check if the risotto is well bound. If the risotto is too dry, we add a little stock and we continue stirring. If, on the other hand, the risotto is too wet, we continue cooking it till creamy.
We put in plates and we serve decorating with the whole slice of cold cut and maybe a piece of chervil.
