How to Make Herb Braised Artichokes

Hello, this is Chef John from foodwishes.com and today, we are doing artichokes. I’ve had a few requests for those and we’re going to do a real nice, light Herb Braised Artichoke. It’s summer and I got a Speedo, a new Speedo to fit into, very unforgiving design. So anyway, here are my two large globe artichokes. I’ve got some fresh oregano and some garlic, and here we go. So we’re going to make here first is what’s called a Court Bouillon and that’s just a culinary term for basically a flavorful cooking liquid and it’s usually just water, which is I just put three cups in. Of course, you’re going to check the site for the specific ingredients. It usually has some kind of acid. In this case, we’re going to use an herb of vinegar. This is a tarragon vinegar but any white vinegar will work. In fact, you can see a couple pieces of tarragon there. So it’s a half a cup of vinegar and there is always some salt in it, so it’s a tablespoon of salt. Now other than that, you can pretty much put in any other spices you want. We have some black pepper here, so that’s going to be pretty much it for me. So let’s prep our artichokes. There are two ways to do it. Now, here’s the first method. I’m going to take a serrated knife. I’d highly recommend a serrated knife. We’re going to cut off that stem. We’re not going to throw it away. That’s going to be very nice later. So we’re going to grab the bottom of the artichoke in a firm grip, and we’re going to cut off about the top inch and a half of those leaves, so it’s just like that and I’ll show you why in a minute. And then give it a good dunking in your acidulated water, which is water with acid in it in fancy culinary terms. In fact, I’m going to use a cup here and I’m really going to drench that thing good. So every cut surface has some of that acidified or acidulated Court Bouillon on it. Now, I’m going to take the stem and I’m going to take a sharp paring knife. I’m going to go around. I’m going to cut off the dark green part, so that was method number one. Method number two, you don’t cut the stem first. You go ahead and you grab the stem, use it like an artichoke handle and some people find that easier to cut off the top with, and then cut off the bottom. So either way, try one way or the other and you decide which is easier. I went ahead and peeled my garlic cloves. I’m going to pull my artichokes out of the Court Bouillon. I just like saying that. And what I’m going to do, sometimes I put the garlic right in the liquid, the Court Bouillon. But what I’m going to do, I’m actually going to stick a couple cloves of garlic right down in the center of these. So that was going to be my—I’m going to infuse those garlic this time. You could again just put it right in the water. So in your Court Bouillon, in your flavorful liquid, you’re going to put in your fresh herbs. If you don’t have fresh, you use a couple tablespoons of dried oregano. I have my stems, I got my artichokes that are stuffed with a couple cloves of garlic. I’m going to bring that up to a simmer and before I put the lid on, I’m going to take a ladle and I’m going to ladle in—so these are like cups now—they’re going to hold that liquid. I’m going to ladle in three or four ladles of liquid. I’m going to cover that and I’m going to simmer those for about 45 minutes. Now, I want you to baste those occasionally. Now, what I mean by that is during that 45 minutes, every, I don’t know, 10 or 15 minutes or so, take another couple of ladles and just ladle it in until the end of each artichoke and that will make it extra flavorful and delicious. And again, 45 minutes here is just a guess. That’s how long these took. It depends on the size and how high you had that boiling and all that kind of stuff. Anyway, these took 45 minutes to test, very simple. Carefully turn them over with your tongs and just pierce in the bottom. And if that paring knife goes in that easy, those are tender, those are cooked. The heat goes off. And what I’m going to do here, this is the real secret, I'm going to turn those cut side down and whatever is left of that cooking liquid, there’s only about a quarter inch left, I'm going to put the lid on and I’m just going to let that sit there and cool like that. Now, what’s going to happen through capillary action—you got to Google that—that artichoke is actually going to soak up some more of that liquid and it’s going to be incredibly flavorful. Now, you can serve this cold, you can serve it warm, you can serve it hot. I’m just going to squeeze some lemon on it. You see on the plate there, I got my artichoke stem. I got some fresh oregano just for looks and of course, I left the garlic clove right in the center there. If you check the site today, I am going to link to three or four different sauces we’ve already made that I think are just going to be perfect with this. And anyway, I hope you give that a try. Enjoy!