sautéed artichokes

For years the only artichokes I ever had were the marinated kind that came in little glass jars. If I saw artichokes listed as a pizza topping or offered in a pasta dish, these were inevitably the kind that was meant. I had them a few times and thought they were okay. Then I moved to Brooklyn for a year and heard that the artichoke pizza at Di Fara in Midwood was not to be missed. So I tried it, and was shocked. The artichokes at Di Fara were not marinated and had never seen the inside of a little glass jar. They were sautéed, and tasted completely different — like artichoke rather than like marinade — and yes, they were absolutely delicious. I had to try this myself. Once I had a decent kitchen, I bought some artichokes and tried to sauté them... with consistently pitiful results. I could never figure out how I was supposed to carve up the artichokes, and what I ended up with was inedible. I don't mean bad-tasting — I mean unable to be chewed or swallowed. I gave up on artichokes.

Recently, however, I have finally found a method that works for me, and have achieved Di-Fara-like results in my own home. So away we go. You'll need:

an artichoke		half a lemon		a clove of garlic		1½ tablespoons of olive oil

Artichokes are flowers, so I store them by placing their stems in glasses of water and then putting them in the fridge. Seems to have worked so far. Before you do anything to the artichoke, fill a bowl with water and squeeze the lemon half into it.

Tear off a few layers of petals until all the remaining petals lie flat.

Chop off the top of the artichoke. You should see three colors in the cross-section: an outer ring of inedible green petals, an inedible purple core, and in between, a thin ring of edible yellow leaves.

Chop off the base of the artichoke so that you have a cylinder of petals. Discard the green ones and the purple core. Immediately dunk the yellow petals in the bowl of lemon water so they don't discolor.

Chop the base of the artichoke into quarters and immediately dunk each quarter into the bowl of lemon water.

Remove one of the quarters from the lemon water and quickly make two diagonal cuts. The first one is to remove the spines...

...then make a parallel cut close to the outer edge. You have now isolated a wedge of artichoke that's actually edible.

Quickly chop the edible wedge into thin slabs, then immediately put the slabs back into the bowl of lemon water.

Repeat with the other three quarters. When you're done, your bowl of lemon water should be full of thin yellow artichoke petals and thin slabs of the edible portion of the artichoke base.

Put the oil into a wok or other pan and place it over medium heat. Lightly smash the garlic clove with the flat of a chef's knife and add it. Then fish the artichoke bits out of the bowl of water and add them, stirring quickly with a wooden spoon to coat the artichoke pieces in the oil.

Sauté, stirring frequently. The artichokes are done when they're golden-brown, crispy, and can actually be eaten. Even the yellow petals can be hard to chew until they're cooked through. You may have included a few petals too close to the outside of the artichoke to be edible no matter how long you cook them; discard these.

I use sautéed artichokes primarily as a pizza topping, but they can also be served over pasta or various other bases.

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