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Artichokes Boiled Plain
Cut off the tips of the leaves and round off the bottoms, removing the stalk and trimming the under leaves away. Soak in salt and water, washing well. Boil them in salt and water until they are quite tender; the leaves come away readily when they are done. Use a large quantity of water for the boiling, as it helps to rid them of a slight bitterness prevalent, especially in the autumn. When cooked drain on a cloth, and then remove with a spoon the soft fibrous substance found inside, and which is sometimes termed the "choke." Then place once more in boiling water to heat up and take out again, drain and serve in a vegetable dish with a strainer, or upon a neatly-folded napkin. Serve with melted butter.
A globe artichoke cooked the plain nineteenth-century way, with the choke removed after boiling rather than before. Nothing here is difficult, but the recipe assumes you know what a done artichoke feels like and gives no times.
- TimingOscar gives none. A medium globe artichoke takes 25-40 minutes at a steady boil depending on size; a large one can want 45. The test in the text is the right one, though a paring knife slipped into the base is more reliable than pulling leaves.
- TrimmingCut the top inch or so off the crown, snap away the tough outer leaves at the base, and level the stem so the artichoke stands. Kitchen scissors take the thorny leaf tips off faster than a knife.
- DiscolourationThe salt-and-water soak was as much about drawing out grit and any insects as about seasoning. Cut surfaces blacken quickly, so add lemon juice or a splash of vinegar to both the soak and the cooking water, or rub the cut edges with a lemon half.
- The large quantity of waterThe text gives the reason itself: artichokes leach bitter compounds, and a crowded pan with little water is likely to give a harsher result. Use a deep pot, keep the artichokes submerged with a plate or lid weight, and salt the water generously.
- Autumn bitternessOscar's note reflects an unforced season. Modern artichokes are mostly spring and autumn crops, and the small late ones can still carry a bitter edge; the ample water and a wedge of lemon handle it.
- Removing the chokeEasiest while the artichoke is still hot but just cool enough to touch. Prise the centre leaves apart, pull out the pale cone, and scrape the hairy choke clear with a teaspoon down to the smooth bottom. Miss any and it is unpleasant in the mouth.
- The second dip in boiling waterTo reheat after trimming, as the text says, and it should be brief; longer and the leaves go slack and waterlogged. Drain upside down so the cavity empties.
- The napkinService on a folded napkin or a dish with a strainer plate exists because a boiled artichoke keeps releasing water. Any perforated insert or a rack over the serving dish does the same job.
- Yield and eatingOne artichoke per person as a first course. Melted butter is the classic; drawn butter with lemon, or hollandaise, follows the same period style. Set out a bowl for the scraped leaves.
The globe artichoke is a cultivated thistle, grown around the Mediterranean since at least the fifteenth century and carried to America by European settlers; California later became the centre of the American crop. In Oscar Tschirky's Waldorf kitchen it would have sat within the French service repertoire, where boiled artichokes with melted butter or hollandaise appeared among the vegetable entremets. Removing the choke after cooking rather than before is often described as the older practice: it comes away cleanly from a cooked artichoke and the leaves are left intact for the table. The English term "choke" for the hairy centre is generally traced to the plant's name rather than the reverse, artichoke being a garbling of the Arabic al-kharshuf by way of northern Italian articiocco, with folk etymology supplying the rest.