No. 2689

Artichokes-Whole-a la Barigoule

Artichauts Entiers a la Barigoule

Pare eight medium-sized artichokes; suppress the hardest leaves from the bottom (Fig. 544) and cut the upper ones off straight on the pointed end; empty out the inside, or more properly speaking the chokes (Fig. 543), wash thoroughly and drain well, turning them upside down so as to have no water left in the inside. Pour some oil in a pan; when very hot fry the tips of the artichoke leaves in it. Should the bottoms be thin, then lay another one inside, thus having two bottoms to one artichoke. To make the dressing, chop up half a pound of fresh fat pork with half a pound of butter; add three finely chopped small shallots, a spoonful and a half of chopped parsley, salt, pepper, nutmeg, a pound of finely minced or chopped mushrooms, and a gill of Madeira wine. Have all these ingredients properly mingled, divide in eight parts, and fill the inside of the artichokes with them; cover with bards of fat pork, tie with two rows of string and lay them in a saucepan with slices of fat pork; on the bottom place carrots, onions, a bunch of parsley with thyme and bay leaf, moisten with half stock (No. 194a) and white wine; boil, skim and then cook in a moderate oven for one hour or longer, until the leaves detach easily; drain the stock, skim and reduce it with espagnole sauce (No. 414) to half-glaze, adding lemon juice. Untie the artichokes, suppress the fat pork and dress; cover lightly with a part of the sauce, serving the remainder separately.

← No. 2688 Artichokes Quartered a la Colbert, Stuffed a Artichokes & Asparagus No. 2690 Artichokes-Whole-a la Rachel →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with stock, espagnole and pork fat on hand. The dish still works in a home kitchen, but several of his terms and quantities need translating first.

The hinge: dry artichokesAfter washing, invert the artichokes and let them drain completely — any water trapped in the cup will spit violently when the leaf tips hit hot oil, and will thin the stuffing. Rub cut surfaces with lemon to keep them from browning while you work through all eight.
"Suppress" and "dress"Nineteenth-century kitchen French run through English: suppress means remove or discard, dress means arrange on the serving platter. Bards are thin sheets of pork fat laid over the top as a cover.
A gillHalf a cup, so 4 fl oz of Madeira in the stuffing. The "spoonful and a half" of parsley is most likely a tablespoon and a half, though Ranhofer never defines his spoonful.
Fresh fat porkUnsalted pork fatback, chopped raw. Fresh fatback is a butcher item; salt pork blanched in water for ten minutes is a workable substitute, but reduce the added salt accordingly. Do not use bacon -- the smoke overwhelms the mushrooms.
The stuffing is very richHalf a pound of fat pork, half a pound of butter and a pound of mushrooms for eight artichokes is about two ounces of fat per serving. Halving the pork and butter while keeping the full pound of mushrooms gives a stuffing that still holds together and tastes of mushroom rather than lard.
Oven temperatureA moderate oven is 350F. Braise covered, with the liquid coming no more than halfway up the artichokes, and judge doneness by the original test: an outer leaf should pull away with no resistance. Expect 60 to 90 minutes depending on size.
Espagnole and half-glazeRanhofer's No. 414 is a day's work with brown roux and veal stock. Bought demi-glace, or the strained braising liquid reduced hard with a little brown stock, gets you to the same place; finish with lemon juice off the heat.
YieldEight stuffed artichokes, one per person as a hot first course. The doubled-bottom trick — nesting a second trimmed bottom inside a thin artichoke — is worth doing if your artichokes are shallow, since the stuffing needs something to sit on.

A Little History

Barigoule is traditionally derived from the Provençal word, a local name for a wild mushroom, though the identification of the species is contested and some accounts hold that the name refers to cooking the artichoke in the manner of the mushroom rather than stuffing it with mushrooms. The earliest versions of the dish are generally traced to Provence, where trimmed artichokes were stuffed with chopped mushrooms and salt pork and grilled or braised in oil. By the time Charles Ranhofer set it down for Delmonico's in The Epicurean (1894) it had been thoroughly absorbed into the grande cuisine repertoire: the mushrooms remain, but they are bound with butter and fatback, moistened with Madeira and white wine, and finished with espagnole reduced to half-glaze. That trajectory, from a Provençal country dish named after a mushroom to a plated first course with a mother sauce, is a fair picture of how nineteenth-century restaurant kitchens handled regional cooking. Modern Provençal artichauts à la barigoule has largely gone the other way, back toward artichokes stewed in olive oil with wine and vegetables and no sauce at all.