Grilled Artichoke with Chermoula Dip Recipe

California is the heart of artichoke country. 100% of the nation’s artichokes are grown right here and did you know that artichokes belong to the sunflower family? Laura McIntosh is bringing it home from the crops to your kitchen. Laura McIntosh: All right thanks for joining me out here in this artichoke field. I'm here with the grower, Dale Huss. Hi Dale. Dale Huss: Hi Laura. Laura McIntosh: Thanks for joining me out here, but actually you have an amazing title. You are the Vice President of artichoke production. Dale Huss: Part of my responsibility is to make sure that you have the highest quality, best eating artichokes, year round in the world. Laura McIntosh: Let’s talk a little bit about the artichokes, themselves. Now this is actually the flower of the plant. Dale Huss: Yeah the artichoke is the flower of the artichoke plant, and what will happen is after the artichokes are gone off of this plant, around the base of this plant new grow starts. And this is going on all the time through out the field, which is why we harvest 325-330 times throughout the year. Laura McIntosh: Throughout the year, so you’re not only harvesting by hand all the time. You’re also coming through and making sure this, when this is harvested it’s cut back so the other ones can grow back. Dale Huss: Exactly Laura McIntosh: Meaning it’s continual maintenance. Dale Huss: It’s continual, it’s high maintenance, delicate seed. Laura McIntosh: And it is a delicate seed. Thanks Dale. Dale Huss: Than you. Laura McIntosh: Well hopefully all of that action made you hungry and the man to deliver great recipes is right here with us, Tony Baker from Montrio Bistro in Monterey. Tony Baker: Hi Laura. Laura McIntosh: Hey, how are you? Tony Baker: I'm wonderful, thank you very much. Yeah a whole grown artichoke is certainly a signature item of our restaurant, and they are very easy to prepare. Laura McIntosh: Now this is like artichoke 101, right really. Tony Baker: Yep, really. So I'm going to show you the quick and easy version. Laura McIntosh: Okay. Tony Baker: This is artichoke fresh from the field, we’re going to whack the tops off. Laura McIntosh: Okay. Tony Baker: Now they got thorns. The good artichokes, the green globe artichoke they have the thorns on them. Laura McIntosh: Yeah Tony Baker: They’ll hurt you. Laura McIntosh: They do hurt. Tony Baker: Yeah. Laura McIntosh: Cut them off. Tony Baker: So now just for presentation but we cut them off. If there’s any on the sides you can nick them with a knife, or scissors and just whack those off. So we’re going to pop the artichokes in a pot of water, we have it standing by and in that I have dried oregano, a red whine vinegar, some lemon juice and a little bit of salt, that’s it. Those are going to take 35 minutes, pop them and drain them and when they come out they’re going to look just like this. Laura McIntosh: Yeah. Tony Baker: Now inside, there’s a reason why they are called artichokes. They have this furry thing inside them, if you can see that. You scrape that out with a dessert spoon. Laura McIntosh: Because that’s the flower if it were to mature. Tony Baker: Yes it got this beautiful purple flower, you scrape that out and then you end up with the prize in the middle which is the artichoke there, the artichoke heart. We’re going to take this to a whole another level to make it taste absolutely more incredible by popping it in. Laura McIntosh: Yeah this is really cool, you told me he was going to do this. Tony Baker: Fire roast it, Laura McIntosh: Fire roast it, artichokes. Tony Baker: It is, I took my favorite vinegar I was simple balsamic vinaigrette just to drizzle, wrap it in a heavy duty foil, pop it into the actual embers these are the coals, this is smoking hot. Laura McIntosh: This is smoking hot. Tony Baker: Yeah and it’s burning out and store in them, it’s just incredible. Laura McIntosh: Yeah how long do you leave it on there? Tony Baker: Oh, about seven minutes, that’s it. So it’s quick, yes you can pre-prepare this at home and impress the heck out of people by throwing them right in your— Laura McIntosh: I think that’s great. Yeah perfect. Tony Baker: And the other thing I'm going to show you an incredible sauce which is wonderful for artichokes. A lot of people just take mayonnaise and dunk the leaves at mayonnaise course set, Laura McIntosh: I did, I do it. Tony Baker: But we’re going to do a charmula. Charmula is a Moroccan condiment, it consists of cilantro, Italian parsley, cumin, garlic, cayenne pepper, paprika and lemon juice. And we’re going to add mayonnaise to it. We’re going to start. Parsley, cilantro, this is the cilantro, I already pre washed it and picked it, we’re going to chop this up really quickly. See it’s not real fine in mint but it’s beautiful, fresh, smells delicious. We’re going to pop that in there. That’s a cilantro and parsley. So I've got a dry pan, there’s nothing in this pan, whatsoever. I took my cayenne pepper, the cumin, the paprika and I toast it, I'm toasting it right now. It really awakens the spices, it brings another life. Laura McIntosh: It smells like—. And that's why you want to smell it too. Tony Baker: Of course. All right now I'm going to pop the spices in here. Now we have some garlic and we take a little bit of fresh chopped garlic, good old mayo, I'm going to pop all of that in there. Laura McIntosh: okay Tony Baker: Okay, and I'm going to mix these up because the next thing is I'm going to add some lemon juice, but I want to bring it to the right consistency and taste so lemon juice is going to add the acid and really make everything. All right so this is just incredible. Now we’re going to pull our artichokes off the grill and hopefully they should have a nice caramelization on the outside. All right so what this does is you got a nice, smoky flavor that carries through the whole artichoke, it’s delicious. I'm going to pour a little bit of olive oil over the top , it’s a nice shine. Laura McIntosh: Tell me that’s it. Tony Baker: And that is it. Laura McIntosh: It’s fun to do too, huh Tony Baker: Yeah and you can prepare it ahead of time so it’s not a big deal Laura McIntosh: Oh my God that’s, oh that’s delicious, I love it on the grill.