No. 2683

Artichoke Bottoms Fried

Fonds d'Artichauts Frits

Pare off the bottoms of some young, tender and stringless artichokes; after cutting away the green part divide each one in four, remove the choke and cut the leaves at half an inch from the bottom; divide each quarter in four and throw them at once into a pan of water acidulated with vinegar; drain and lay them in a vessel with salt, pepper, oil and lemon juice. Prepare a frying paste with flour, diluted with water, adding a few egg-yolks and a little olive oil; whip the whites to a stiff froth and beat them into the paste; dip each piece of artichoke into this and plunge them in hot frying fat; cook slowly, drain, wipe and salt over with salt; dress on a folded napkin with a bunch of parsley on top.

← No. 2682 Artichoke Bottoms a la Villars Artichokes & Asparagus No. 2684 Artichoke Bottoms Stuffed-Lean →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes you can buy artichokes small and tender enough to fry raw, and that you know a fritter batter by heart. Both assumptions need filling in.

The hinge: the artichoke must be young enough to fry rawThis works only with small, tight, stringless artichokes whose chokes are barely formed. Large globe artichokes from a supermarket will still be woody after the batter has browned, so blanch the trimmed pieces in acidulated water for 5-8 minutes and dry them thoroughly before dipping.
"Fonds" means the bottom, not the heartPare away all the dark green outer leaf bases and the fibrous skin of the stem until only pale flesh remains. The instruction to cut the leaves half an inch above the bottom leaves a short collar of tender leaf, which crisps in the fat.
Acidulated waterAbout 2 tablespoons vinegar or the juice of a lemon per quart of water is enough to stop the cut surfaces going black. Drop each piece in as it is cut rather than trimming everything first.
The marinadeSalt, pepper, oil and lemon juice is a short marinade in the French sense: 20-30 minutes is plenty, and the pieces must be wiped dry or the batter will slide off.
Batter proportions, unstatedThe original gives no quantities. A workable version of this pâte à frire is 1 cup flour, about 3/4 cup water, 2 egg yolks and 1 tablespoon olive oil, rested 30 minutes, with 2 whites whipped stiff and folded in just before frying. Fold the whites in at the last moment or the batter deflates.
"Cook slowly" is a temperature, not a duration"Cook slowly" is about the heat of the fat, not a set time -- the recipe gives no temperature. Moderate fat, in the region of 335-350F, rather than the hotter fat often used for fritters, lets the artichoke finish as the batter sets; blanched pieces take roughly 4-6 minutes. In very hot fat the coating colours before the vegetable is done.
Frying fatThe recipe specifies only "hot frying fat," which in a kitchen of this period would most likely have meant rendered beef fat or lard. Any neutral oil with a high smoke point does the same job; olive oil here is for the batter and the marinade, not the fryer.
The parsley and the napkinThe "bunch of parsley on top" is not described as cooked, though parsley fried for a few seconds in the same fat until it stops sputtering was a common garnish of the period; the folded napkin absorbs grease. A rack and a warm plate accomplish the same thing.
YieldFour artichokes cut this way give roughly 64 pieces, which serves four as a first course or vegetable. Fry in batches and hold in a 200F oven; the whipped-white batter does not tolerate sitting long.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after some three decades as chef of Delmonico's in New York, and the book is essentially the working repertoire of a grand French restaurant kitchen written out in encyclopedic order. That is why the artichoke section runs to many numbered variations on the bottoms alone, each cross-referenced to its neighbours: a chef needed options, not inspiration. Fonds d'artichauts — the fleshy base with the choke and outer leaves pared away — was one of the standard luxury garnishes of nineteenth-century French cooking, served stuffed, braised, or, as here, cut down and fried in a fritter batter lightened with beaten egg whites. Large-scale California artichoke growing, which now supplies most of the country, developed only after this book appeared; what stock a New York kitchen of the 1890s actually had is not recorded here, beyond Ranhofer's insistence on "young, tender and stringless."