|
| Stuffed Baby Artichokes |
|
|
| Thursday, 12 June 2008 | |
|
These look so pretty and summery – they taste it, too. Ingredients: • Bunch of baby artichokes. For the stuffing: • Zest of 1 lemon • Juice of half a lemon • Generous handful of pine nuts • Generous handful of breadcrumbs made with stale bread • Generous handful of chopped parsley or sorrel • Generous handful of grated hard, mature cheese • 2 fat cloves of garlic, finely chopped • A few massive glugs of extra virgin olive oil • 3 thin slices of chopped jambon de Bayonne or similar • Small pinch of salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper  What to do: • Heat the oven to 200ºC • Boil the artichokes in water for five minutes, then allow to cool, before gently squeezing out excess water. • Meanwhile, toast the pine nuts in a dry frying pan, then put them aside. • In the same pan, crisp up the ham. • Once the ham has been removed, use the excess fat to gently and briefly fry the garlic. • Bash all the stuffing ingredients up together, using a pestle and mortar. Leave the mixture reasonably rough, so that there are still identifiable pieces, e.g. a few pine nuts are still whole. • Put a little blob of stuffing behind each artichoke leaf, pushing it down to the bottom, working from the outside of the flower, inwards. It is less fiddly than you might imagine, and you’ll find you can often do several leaves at once. When you’ve finished each artichoke, squeeze it together slightly in your hands, to re-compact its shape. • When they are all stuffed, cut each artichoke in half lengthways, and place in a roasting tin or baking dish, cut edge up. Roast in the oven for 10 minutes, until the edges are crispy. They can take being quite well done and even charred in places. • Serve 2 artichoke halves per diner, sprinkled with some freshly chopped parsley or sorrel, and accompanied by some with chilled, crisp white wine. Have plenty of kitchen paper on hand, for greasy fingers. |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
| French are less pessimistic! |
| According to the monthly opinion poll BVA the economic confidence index among French people has increased for the second month running. | |
| Read more... |
| Battle rages to control Socialist party |
| The French Socialist party is locked in a fierce procedural struggle to establish clearly who won last Friday’s election for the post of Secretary-General. | |
| Read more... |
| Ségolène by a whisker? |
|
The French Socialists know they will be led by a woman. They will not know until tonight which one. The result will be very close. |
|
| Read more... |
| Simone Veil achieves immortality. |
| The 81 year old lawyer and politician has been elected at the first attempt to the ranks of the Académie Française known to the French as' les Immortels'. | |
| Read more... |
