A couple of weeks ago, a friend dropped off a box of treasure: baby artichokes! She wondered what I would do with them, and I wondered too. Honestly, I don't mess with artichokes very often. I think the frozen hearts you can buy have a wonderful green flavor and are perfect for most dishes. I will use the canned ones as well in recipes like my artichoke dip and they work perfectly.But baby artichokes? Okay, lest you call the People for the Ethical Treatment of Vegetables on me, these are not real baby artichokes that are raised in crates and only fed milk. These are the smaller globes which appear around the base of the plant. In addition to being smaller in size and more delicate, they don't have a choke and are completely edible. What does completely edible mean? Once you get off the tough outer leaves, you can enjoy all of what's left!
So, what to do with the 'baby' artichokes? I did some research and the most common preparation is to fry them. Simple, easy and delicious. So, that's exactly what I did. Since lemon goes so nicely with artichokes, I created a lemon salt to finish them by combining lemon zest and coarse Kosher salt.But, fry one thing? For me, frying is a big deal. I don't do it very often because, although delicious, cleaning up after frying is a pain. What do you do with oil? How do you keep you entire house from smelling like McDonald's? So, if I am going to fill a pan (my grandmother's cast iron that she used for frying chicken) with oil and go to all of the trouble of frying, I am going to be frying more than one thing.
Arancini! Qu'est-ce que c'est what?
Arancini are one of my favorite things to make and to eat. What are they? Small balls of leftover risotto that can be stuffed with a variety of things (or left plain), rolled in breadcrumbs and fried. Arancini is from the Sicilian dialect and means 'little orange' for the shape and color of the balls after they are fried. People always say, 'risotto has to be eaten hot off of the stove,' or, 'risotto isn't good leftover.' They're crazy and wrong. While I love risotto, I must admit that my primary motivation is to have enough leftovers to make the arancini.
So, I made a big Italian meal for friends:
Fried baby artichokes (recipe from Giada is here)Arancini
Olives and other pickly things
Grissini
Dama Bianca
Gratineed gnocchi
Roasted winter squash with balsamic reduction
Panna cotta with pomegranate molasses and seeds
(I'm working on perfecting this recipe and will have for you very soon!)
It was very yummy and we had a fun (and fried!) evening!