Produce Review: Cardoons
Feb. 17th, 2008 10:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrj(Pause for a moment to enjoy the unresolved ambiguity of the subject line syntax.)
Nothing like a long meditative post to produce a gratifying level of external validation! But onward to more mundane matters. Yesterday saw sufficient yardwork to fill the green-bin to overflowing. I managed to weed the entire North Fence (I always imagine the phrase capitalized, as if I were talking about the North Forty or something) which is the one with all the berry brambles and the most recalcitrant rosebush. Thus my hands and forearms currently look like I've lost a cat-fight, combined with some odd pox, perhaps. After that I got the bike tire changed which ended up including a new tire, not just a new tube -- turns out the last piece of glass I ran over sliced the tire badly enough that the tube balloons out just a tiny bit through the gash, making it inevitable that it'll pick up new damage. In the evening I put in more time negotiating with the sheet-feed scanner and got several more articles turned into PDFs. I can tell, though, that I'll have a hard time working up the confidence to let go of the hard copies and trust to the electronic ones. There's a voice in the back of my brain whispering that I could just archive them in boxes in the attic or something ... just in case I've lost some small bit of resolution that I want to retrieve in the future.
And, of course, the other thing I did yesterday was the weekly grocery shopping. I regularly brag on doing my produce shopping at Berkeley Bowl, which has one of the most stupendous selections of produce -- both standard and ... unusual -- of anything presenting itself as a full-service supermarket. But the fact is, although I have very broad tastes in produce, I don't tend to be truly adventurous on an everyday basis. So it occurred to me that I ought to take more advantage of my opportunities by buying one item every week or so that I've never tried before. It might be an entirely new experience (like this week's) or simply an untried variety of an old standard (like some of the odd caulobroccofloretty-thingies). So yesterday I picked up a bunch of cardoons to kick off the resolution.
Cardoons (for those who don't know) are functionally equivalent to "the rest of the artichoke plant". (I suspect that there are specific varieties of the species specialized for cardoons rather than artichoke heads, but I'd be willing to bet it's the same species.) In shape, it looks a bit like a large, awkward, somewhat hairy bunch of celery. When I picked it up, I had no idea what one does with a cardoon, but I figured, how hard could it be? I have cookbooks up the wazoo, including ones that specialize in telling you what to do with pretty much every known foodstuff. So I checked out the instructions in both Larousse Gastronomique and Joy of Cooking for the purposes of triangulation. Both agreed that you remove the outer leaves (but don't tell you how you distinguish between "outer" and "inner"), trim the inner leaves and the heart, cut the leaves into ca. 3" pieces, then simmer them for a couple of hours in bouillon. Hmm. A couple of hours. This is a warning sign. After this simmering process, you discard the bouillon and further process the cardoons in various ways, mostly involving sauces that include substantial quantities of butter. Actually, JoC says to parboil them in bouillon and then change it for acidulated water for the couple-hour simmering.
So I removed the set of stalks that were initially visible (about 4), then figured I'd cook the rest and see what happened. I trimmed off the top and bottom of each, as well as the little fringe of leaf along the sides of the upper half of the stalk (which became more prominent the further in you went) then sliced them in 3-inch sections. I went for the simple version of simply simmering in broth and, for logistical reasons, kept it to about an hour and a half (because that's when the rest of dinner was ready). At that point I drained them, rinsed in hot water (to avoid cooling them off too much) and drained again. I figured I'd try three different post-simmer treatments from the simplest ones suggested by LG: drizzled in cream, sautéed in butter, and drizzled in some sort of white sauce. For each, I decided to cut up the stalks further into about half-inch pieces, which turned out to be an excellent feedback method for determining which stalks should have been classified as "outer" originally. If a semi-dull knife couldn't cut through the stalk easily, I should have discarded it at the beginning. In retrospect, this means I should have about doubled the number of stalks I discarded. The rest were quite tender and, after dicing up about a half cup for each of the three experiments, I still had about a cup left. This suggests that even with the amount discarded, a single cardoon of typical size would produce enough for a side dish for 4-6 people.
Taste. Mmmmmm, taste. The taste was -- as expected -- extremely close to that of artichoke. In fact, the "heart" (which is the non-fibrous part of the inner stem) is unsurprisingly almost identical to artichoke heart in taste, with the stems having the same flavor but with a bit more texture and a hint of bitterness. The bitterness no doubt can be addressed both by discarding more of the outer leaves (where it's stronger) and by going for the parboil-and-change method, although I'd be inclined to swap the liquids and parboil in acidulated water followed by simmering in broth. The plain cream dressing was unexciting, but both the butter and white sauce versions were quite delicious, and didn't actually require vast quantities of butter for the effect. (I did my lazy method for the white sauce by cooking the chopped cardoons in a little butter then dusting the whole contents with a little flour and finishing off with a splash of light cream stirred up just enough to thicken. It occurs to me that garlic would be an excellent addition in the future.
Would I cook them again? Maybe for a special purpose. The long cooking time makes them a bit awkward unless I do the simmering part in advance and then just finish them off during the dinner prep. (Or unless I'm slaving over a hot stove all day anyway for some reason.) Still and all, I think so far they get my vote for Most Surprisingly Delicious Weed-Like-Object.
Nothing like a long meditative post to produce a gratifying level of external validation! But onward to more mundane matters. Yesterday saw sufficient yardwork to fill the green-bin to overflowing. I managed to weed the entire North Fence (I always imagine the phrase capitalized, as if I were talking about the North Forty or something) which is the one with all the berry brambles and the most recalcitrant rosebush. Thus my hands and forearms currently look like I've lost a cat-fight, combined with some odd pox, perhaps. After that I got the bike tire changed which ended up including a new tire, not just a new tube -- turns out the last piece of glass I ran over sliced the tire badly enough that the tube balloons out just a tiny bit through the gash, making it inevitable that it'll pick up new damage. In the evening I put in more time negotiating with the sheet-feed scanner and got several more articles turned into PDFs. I can tell, though, that I'll have a hard time working up the confidence to let go of the hard copies and trust to the electronic ones. There's a voice in the back of my brain whispering that I could just archive them in boxes in the attic or something ... just in case I've lost some small bit of resolution that I want to retrieve in the future.
And, of course, the other thing I did yesterday was the weekly grocery shopping. I regularly brag on doing my produce shopping at Berkeley Bowl, which has one of the most stupendous selections of produce -- both standard and ... unusual -- of anything presenting itself as a full-service supermarket. But the fact is, although I have very broad tastes in produce, I don't tend to be truly adventurous on an everyday basis. So it occurred to me that I ought to take more advantage of my opportunities by buying one item every week or so that I've never tried before. It might be an entirely new experience (like this week's) or simply an untried variety of an old standard (like some of the odd caulobroccofloretty-thingies). So yesterday I picked up a bunch of cardoons to kick off the resolution.
Cardoons (for those who don't know) are functionally equivalent to "the rest of the artichoke plant". (I suspect that there are specific varieties of the species specialized for cardoons rather than artichoke heads, but I'd be willing to bet it's the same species.) In shape, it looks a bit like a large, awkward, somewhat hairy bunch of celery. When I picked it up, I had no idea what one does with a cardoon, but I figured, how hard could it be? I have cookbooks up the wazoo, including ones that specialize in telling you what to do with pretty much every known foodstuff. So I checked out the instructions in both Larousse Gastronomique and Joy of Cooking for the purposes of triangulation. Both agreed that you remove the outer leaves (but don't tell you how you distinguish between "outer" and "inner"), trim the inner leaves and the heart, cut the leaves into ca. 3" pieces, then simmer them for a couple of hours in bouillon. Hmm. A couple of hours. This is a warning sign. After this simmering process, you discard the bouillon and further process the cardoons in various ways, mostly involving sauces that include substantial quantities of butter. Actually, JoC says to parboil them in bouillon and then change it for acidulated water for the couple-hour simmering.
So I removed the set of stalks that were initially visible (about 4), then figured I'd cook the rest and see what happened. I trimmed off the top and bottom of each, as well as the little fringe of leaf along the sides of the upper half of the stalk (which became more prominent the further in you went) then sliced them in 3-inch sections. I went for the simple version of simply simmering in broth and, for logistical reasons, kept it to about an hour and a half (because that's when the rest of dinner was ready). At that point I drained them, rinsed in hot water (to avoid cooling them off too much) and drained again. I figured I'd try three different post-simmer treatments from the simplest ones suggested by LG: drizzled in cream, sautéed in butter, and drizzled in some sort of white sauce. For each, I decided to cut up the stalks further into about half-inch pieces, which turned out to be an excellent feedback method for determining which stalks should have been classified as "outer" originally. If a semi-dull knife couldn't cut through the stalk easily, I should have discarded it at the beginning. In retrospect, this means I should have about doubled the number of stalks I discarded. The rest were quite tender and, after dicing up about a half cup for each of the three experiments, I still had about a cup left. This suggests that even with the amount discarded, a single cardoon of typical size would produce enough for a side dish for 4-6 people.
Taste. Mmmmmm, taste. The taste was -- as expected -- extremely close to that of artichoke. In fact, the "heart" (which is the non-fibrous part of the inner stem) is unsurprisingly almost identical to artichoke heart in taste, with the stems having the same flavor but with a bit more texture and a hint of bitterness. The bitterness no doubt can be addressed both by discarding more of the outer leaves (where it's stronger) and by going for the parboil-and-change method, although I'd be inclined to swap the liquids and parboil in acidulated water followed by simmering in broth. The plain cream dressing was unexciting, but both the butter and white sauce versions were quite delicious, and didn't actually require vast quantities of butter for the effect. (I did my lazy method for the white sauce by cooking the chopped cardoons in a little butter then dusting the whole contents with a little flour and finishing off with a splash of light cream stirred up just enough to thicken. It occurs to me that garlic would be an excellent addition in the future.
Would I cook them again? Maybe for a special purpose. The long cooking time makes them a bit awkward unless I do the simmering part in advance and then just finish them off during the dinner prep. (Or unless I'm slaving over a hot stove all day anyway for some reason.) Still and all, I think so far they get my vote for Most Surprisingly Delicious Weed-Like-Object.
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-17 08:32 pm (UTC)Per the Oxford Companion to Food,
"Long before the arichoke was developed, the ancient Greeks and Romans regarded the cardoon as a great delicacy. it was first described in the 4th century BC by the Greek writer Theophrastus, who stated that it was a native of Sicily." ... "The cardoon remained populare through the Middle Ages and continued to appear in English cookery books through the 18th and into the 19th century ..." ... "The blanched stalks or ribs or the inner leaves are favoured in Spain for the Madrid version of the nationally renowned cocido and in other dishes too. In addition, wild cardoon heads are gathered in Italy and Spain and used as a vegetable rennet for making certain kinds of cheese."
Per Robin Carroll Mann's translation of Enrique de Aragon Villena's "Arte cisoria" (1423), "... artichokes are to be cut like other cardoons and that they can be served boiled or pickled."
So, the last time I bought cardoons, I pickled them using the same recipe I use for pickling baby artichokes. Very tasty. The cardoons I had were very young and tender. The first time I cooked cardoons, I didn't like them at all because I didn't remove enough of the bitter parts. It helps lots if you take a vegetable peeler to the outer stalks to remove the bitter and fiberous bits.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-17 08:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-17 09:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-19 06:19 pm (UTC)It occurs to me to wonder how they would do simmering in a crockpot all day; that might take a lot of the inconvenience out of the long cooking time.