Artichoke, Artichoke-Lemon, and Lemon
A super awesome recipe for a dinner I made on the spot
Ingredients:
1 globe artichoke, tips trimmed and stem peeled or removed
Lemon(s), discard seeds, juice, and pulp/peel separated to the side; DO NOT throw the pulp or peel
Seasoning (salt and pepper)
Bucatini
Water
Butter, cold and cut into cubes
Tools:
chopsticks, stove, and saucepan
Cook artichoke first. Boil artichoke and lemon peel in water until cooked. Once cooked, remove artichoke and discard peel. Keep the water.
The water has pectin and lemon oil, as well as the artichoke flavor. You may need to add more water later.
2. Prepare the artichoke for eating. Peel artichoke leaves. Cut the stem and heart or leave whole.
3. Cook bucatini in lemon-artichoke water based on preferred doneness. Add more water if the bucatini is not mostly or completely submerged. Transfer bucatini into a heat-safe mixing bowl. Add artichoke heart and stem.
4. Reduce lemon-artichoke water. Once volume is reduced to desired volume and/or thickness, add lemon juice and seasoning. The liquid must shows a light simmer and is hotter than warm. Add cold butter.
Here, the butter will emulsify with the water. Add the lemon juice quickly and the butter more quickly because Vitamin C breaks down under heat. So the hotter the pan and the longer you keep the lemon juice in the pan, the less vitamin C you are getting. The lemon-artichoke water does retain a lot of lemon flavor, but if you are seeking to get the most out of your lemons, work fast.
5. Pour sauce with noodles and artichoke. Stir until it's beautiful. If it's not beautiful, finish it with some grated parmesan. Season as needed.
Done
I like this recipe because it was so unnecessarily long, but I refused to make it a one-pot recipe. And, if you decided to snack on the artichoke leaves while reducing the lemon-artichoke water or cooking the bucatini, you start to set your tongue up for an interesting dinner.
I almost forgot that the cynarin can turn the lemons kind of sweet. It's weird because you still taste the sour, but then you get a strange sweetness. And, no, that's not cyanide.
Plus, the heart and stem have a firm texture that I enjoyed. This is the kind of dish you make when you are tired, but you want to spend the time to make something that fills you up. The lemons are refreshing, but the artichoke balances the sour flavor.
Inside the artichoke are petals that surround the choke. Spread them out, and you might just have a flower nearly as mesmerizing as the actual flower this ingredient would have bloomed into.
The purple parts are a little prickly, but the whiter parts are soft and feathery in your mouth. Just eat like 10 of these smaller petals at a time while stuffing your mouth with some cheese while you watch your noodles cook.
