Thistle and weeds, part 2

Look what I found!

A real artichoke! I watched Julie and Julia again this Monday, and of course I was inspired. Earlier that day I went to Asia mat for a couple of things, and behold, a whole box of these beautiful thistles were sitting on a shelf and they were calling out my name. "I will buy one", I thought to myself, "and if I dont have time to cook it, at least I will have something pretty to look at." So I purchased my very first artichoke. 

After looking at it for a couple of days I decided it was time to take the next step. Consulting Andreas Viestads article on how to cook and eat an artichoke I simply cut the stem of it and boiled it for 25 minutes or so. In the meantime I made Hollandaise sauce, just like Julie... It wasnt even hard! The only mistake I made was to use salted butter and add salt (again!), mainly because I used two different recipes, so really I set myself up for failure here. I really dont know what Hollandaise is supposed to taste like, but I think it was pretty close. 

Then the eating: Peeling one leaf off at the time, dipping them in the sauce and sucking the ends of them is fun finger food, but after a while I got impatient to find out what the heart of it looked like, and sped up the eating process. Suddenly a flower appeared out of nowhere, and I screamed with excitement! My roommates werent that into it, but let me have my moment. I found the heart and enjoyed it all!

It really is a flower!

Eating an artichoke will certainly not fill you up, even when accompanied by a sauce that is basically butter. So make sure you make a main course, not just a starter, next time you prepare one of these darlings.