I can always tell Easter is fast approaching because those beautiful globe artichokes start springing up in the grocery store.
And that means it’s time for the annual genuflection before the ultimate Italian Easter dish: stuffed, baked artichokes!
I made the dish with six globe beauties last week, in preparation for doing them again Easter weekend on April 16 with a marinated, grilled, boneless leg of lamb and fresh pasta in brown butter sauce.
I have made stuffed artichokes numerous times through the years and have decided that there are four keys to getting the best out of them.
First, you must snip the ends off the leaves and scoop out the thistle from the middle of the artichoke. This is not negotiable. It is hard work and involves a little elbow grease but your stuffed chokes will be the better for it.
Second, you must parboil the cleaned chokes for a good 15 minutes. This ensures the leaves are meltingly tender.
Third, peel and dice the stems and include them in your stuffing. My stuffing usually consists of toasted pine nuts, Parmesan, olive oil, fresh parsley, Panko bread crumbs and egg.
Fourth, you have to get your hands in there and open up the cleaned choke to smush some stuffing between the leaves and in the center well.
Baked, stuffed artichokes at Easter are among my fondest food memories of growing up in Worcester.
This does raise the question of why I associate food with religious ceremonies, but I’ll leave the answer to that one to others.
— LOU
One time when I was out for dinner at the original Spoletos in Northampton, one of the people in my party — who had never had an artichoke, let alone a stuffed one — ate the whole artichoke leaf. He chewed and chewed and finally spit it out and said “Wow, these are kind of tough.” We all had a good laugh.
FYI, if you’ve never had an artichoke, don’t eat the whole leaf or the choke for that matter.
— LUCY
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