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Fried Artichokes
Sprinkle Boiled Artichokes cut in quarters with salt, pepper, and finely chopped parsley. Dip in Batter I, fry in deep fat, and drain. In preparing artichokes, trim off tops of leaves closer than when served as Boiled Artichokes.
A two-stage vegetable fritter: globe artichokes are boiled, quartered, seasoned, battered and fried. The book assumes you have already read its Boiled Artichokes and Batter I entries, so the practical work is mostly in the preparation.
- Which artichokeThese are globe artichokes, not Jerusalem artichokes. Medium ones quarter neatly and cook evenly.
- Trim harder than for boilingThis is the instruction that matters. Served whole, an artichoke keeps its leaves because diners scrape them; quartered and fried, any tough outer leaf is inedible. Snap off the dark outer leaves entirely, cut the top third off the cone, and pare the stem and base with a knife.
- Remove the chokeThe recipe does not say so, but once the cooked artichoke is quartered the hairy choke is exposed and must be scooped out with a teaspoon before battering.
- Keep them from browningCut surfaces oxidise within minutes. Rub with lemon or drop into acidulated water as you trim, and add lemon juice to the boiling water.
- Dry before dippingBoiled artichokes hold a lot of water in the leaf bases. Drain them cut side down and blot well, or the batter will slide off and the fat will spit.
- Batter IThe book's numbered fritter batter is given elsewhere; look it up in the Batters section for the exact proportions rather than substituting a modern beer batter, which behaves differently. Mix it lightly and use it at once.
- Deep fat temperatureThe recipe says only "deep fat"; the book's bread-cube test for cooked mixtures corresponds roughly to 375-390F. Fry in small batches for two to three minutes, until the coating is set and pale gold; the artichoke is already cooked, so you are only crisping the shell.
- DrainingDrain on a rack over paper rather than directly on paper, which steams the underside soft. Salt immediately out of the fat and serve hot with lemon.
- YieldFour artichokes give sixteen pieces, enough for four as a side dish or a first course.
Fried artichokes belong to a long Mediterranean tradition — the Roman carciofi alla giudia and the Tuscan battered fritter are the best-known versions — and they reached American cookbooks partly through French cookery, where artichauts frits are often said to have been served as an entremets. Their appearance in the Boston Cooking-School Cook-Book is characteristic of Fannie Farmer's method: one full entry for Boiled Artichokes, then a chain of short derivative recipes that reuse it, each cross-referencing a numbered batter or sauce elsewhere in the book. The economy of the writing assumes a cook working straight through the volume rather than dipping into a single page, which is why so many of these late-nineteenth-century entries read as fragments today.