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Artichokes, Jerusalem, Fried
Pare and cut the artichokes in slices about the eighth of an inch in thickness, and fry them in sufficient boiling oil or lard for them to wim in until they are a rich brown. Strew a little salt over them, pile high on a dish, and send to table hot. Time to fry, eight or ten minutes. Sufficient, two pounds for a moderatesized dish. Probable cost, 2d. or 3d. per pound.
A straightforward deep-fry that works as well now as it did then, provided you treat the timing as a guide rather than an instruction. Jerusalem artichokes are sold today as sunchokes; they are the knobbly tubers of Helianthus tuberosus, unrelated to globe artichokes.
- Fat temperature"Boiling oil or lard" means fat hot enough to sizzle briskly, roughly 350-375F. Below that the slices absorb fat and go limp; much above and the sugars in the tuber brown before the inside softens.
- TimingEight to ten minutes is far too long for slices an eighth of an inch thick at frying heat. Expect three to five minutes, working in batches so the fat does not drop in temperature, and pull them when they are deep gold.
- Enough fat to swimThe instruction that matters: the slices must float free. A crowded pan steams them into softness instead of crisping them. Two inches of fat in a deep saucepan is ample for a couple of handfuls at a time.
- Slicing and discolorationCut flesh browns quickly. Slice on a mandoline straight into water with a squeeze of lemon, then dry the slices thoroughly on a cloth before they go near the fat.
- ParingPeeling knobbly tubers with a knife wastes a great deal. Scrub well and leave the skin on if the specimens are young and thin-skinned; it crisps agreeably.
- YieldTwo pounds of tubers, once pared and fried, serves roughly four to six as a side dish; the original calls two pounds enough for a moderate-sized dish. Fried slices lose a good deal of volume.
- Cost note"2d. or 3d. per pound" is the Victorian retail price and is only useful now as an indication of how cheap the vegetable was considered.
- InulinSunchokes store carbohydrate as inulin rather than starch, which some people digest poorly. A modest first serving is sensible if the vegetable is new to the table.
Jerusalem artichokes reached Europe from North America in the early seventeenth century and the name is a muddle twice over: the plant is a sunflower, not an artichoke, and the "Jerusalem" is generally traced to a corruption of the Italian girasole, sunflower, though the etymology is disputed. By the time Cassell's dictionary was compiled the tuber had settled into the British kitchen as a cheap, reliably productive winter root, boiled, mashed, made into the pale soup called Palestine soup, or, as here, sliced and fried like a potato chip. The price quoted, two or three pence a pound, places it firmly among the economical vegetables of the period, and the recipe's brevity reflects that: no sauce, no garnish, just salt and heat.