"I love all the vegetables, but I seem to love the prickly, globular artichoke above all other." Madhur Jaffrey
So does Tessa Kiros apparently, but I have to say it is not a favourite of mine. It's incredibly difficult to deal with and to my mind tastes soapy when you finally get to the heart. Nigel Slater likes it but cannot grow it, and so he left it out of his book on the vegetables he grows - Tender volume 1. He mentions it in the last pictures and Jonathan Lovekin took this lovely photograph.
Madhur Jaffrey thought that it was possible she liked it so much because:
"the difficulty in getting to the limited edible portions of this vegetable makes the heart grow fonder."
Or - in her case her first encounter with an artichoke "travelling to America for the very first time, on the Queen Mary."
Memory is all. Well it often is. My first encounter was in France where it is eaten by stripping the leaves off, one by one, of the boiled artichoke, dipping them in vinaigrette and then eating the soft bit at the bottom of each leaf, before finally getting to the heart, after removing all that hairy stuff, and dousing the heart with vinaigrette too. I never really understood why everyone got so excited about artichokes. So I think I'm going with Madhur Jaffrey and her difficulty theory - and their undeniable photogenic beauty.
This is a first recipe post - yet another tidying up process. The book - Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian - complete with a beautiful artichoke on the cover - has been sitting on my desk for ages, because, I'm marginally ashamed to admit, of my dislike of artichokes. And in any case I've done artichokes before because in any book about ingredients arranged alphabetically it will always come up first. Except for Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall I seem to recall, who found Alexanders.
I haven't cooked a lot of things from this book although I should because her recipes are all pretty wonderful. I do cook asparagus according to her instructions, but I think that's about it. This is partly because there are no pictures and it is also a dauntingly large book. But all serious cooks should probably have a copy on their bookshelves. As well as the recipes there are instructions on how to choose and how to cook in a basic manner as well as a bit of history and information about its usage around the world.
In terms of collectors and creators Madhur Jaffrey is a bit of both. There are many recipes in all of her books that she has obtained from others who she names, and if she alters them she tells us so. This first recipe is from Androche Markidis - although in her introduction she talks of "the two delightful ladies in Nicosia who gave me this recipe."
As I said there are no pictures and so I cannot give you a picture of this dish. Normally I would be able to find somebody else's version, and so I looked for one, but this is where I discovered that Madhur had got the name wrong, and so I'm not at all sure what dish she is actually talking about. It was really a little bit fascinating.
The name given in the book is Artichoke hearts with wine and coriander seeds (Tiganites aginares). So very wrong.
The picture on the left is of Tiganites. These are from a website called Mia Kouppa. Not an artichoke in sight. Well that's because Tiganites are a kind of Greek pancake that contain yeast and which are usually eaten with honey. There is absolutely no relationship to artichokes here, even though some people did mention that these pancakes can be savoury as well as sweet.
However when I searched for savoury versions I found that this usually meant that some feta, onions or spring onions were incorporated into the batter. Possibly worth looking at some day - has anyone done a count of how many different kinds of pancakes there are in the world? Not today though.
So I changed my tack and searched using the English words whereupon I came up with a classic Greek dish called Greek artichoke stew (Aginares a la polita). This version is from a website called Real Greek Recipes. It's an artichoke, potato, pea and carrot stew in an egg and lemon sauce, and does look tempting - if you like artichokes. There are lots of other versions on the net, but none of them seem to include coriander, and virtually all of them have those peas. The peas seem to be crucial. The sauce is not always the same however, sometimes it's just a braise in water, sometimes there is wine ... And it is also Greek, not Cypriot, although whether that matters or not I really don't know.
I forgot to mention that there were potatoes in the dish even though they are not in the title. Madhur Jaffrey said they were there 'to stretch out the artichokes'. So I continued my search with the English ingredients - artichokes, potatoes, coriander, wine.
Which is how I came across Crushed potatoes with coriander and wine (Patates antinaktés)/Aglaia & Costas' Aegean Island Kitchen.
Again in her introduction Madhur Jaffrey says that "ideally both the artichoke hearts and the potatoes should be deep fried first," which for reasons of health she ignores, and just tosses the cooked potatoes and artichoke pieces in a smaller amount of oil. But I have to say that the rest of the recipe from Aglaia and Costas is very similar to Madhur's. The only thing that is missing really is the artichokes. The rest is virtually the same. Moreover it is a Cypriot dish. And look at the Greek name Patapes antinaktés - which apparently means tossed. To a non Greek speaker it would sound - and look very much like 'Tiganites' so I think Madhur got it wrong and that really her dish should be called Aginares antinaktés. 'Antinaktés' is also sometimes written as 'Antinahtes'.
It doesn't stop there however. I almost gave up at this stage, but lower down the list of Google results was this dish of Roasted artichokes and potatoes from Diane Kochilas. No wine and no coriander, and roasted, and finished off under the grill, but we now have artichokes and potatoes together so really just another variation of the same thing.
Finally I discovered that the Italians have their own version Carciofi e patate in padella (Braised Artichokes and Potatoes)/Memorie di Angelina. Not just one blogger's recipe - it seems to be a traditional dish. Braised in white wine, but no coriander.
I was about to close all of this down, but decided to have one more look at the Italian version to see if there was much variety. No there isn't, but there was Jamie with a slightly more complicated but pretty easy Potato and artichoke al forno. He adds fennel, uses water rather than wine, and finishes it off with cream and Parmesan. There's a video too. Because he uses the words 'al forno' I'm assuming this is his version of the Italian braised dish - but mixed with the Greek roast version. And bless him, he used artichokes out of a jar. No hours of getting to the heart of the artichoke for him.
A final word. How did Madhur Jaffrey's editors let that mistake in the titling of this recipe slip past? I imagine that Madhur just got it wrong at the time. Misheard it or something. But there's surely no excuse for an editor. Black mark - though does it matter?
No walks today - it's too hot - so no photographs.
YEARS GONE BY
February 22
2023 - Do not poke the jelly bag
2022 - Uphill all the way
2021 - Snacking a COVID problem
2020 - Is small beautiful?
2019 - Nothing
2017 - Nothing
I am n ot an artichoke fan... I don;t exactly choke on them but they leave me absent minded about what they taste like! 😎
I love artichokes! Even the nibbling till you get to the heart