Grilled Artichokes

I have been working on a few knitting projects recently, but I can't reveal them yet.  So this week, I'd like to share my experiments with grilled artichokes.

I have been trying a lot of different grilled veggies over the past few years, starting with asparagus, then zucchini, corn, and even cauliflower.  And I love love love artichokes.  So the thought of grilling artichokes was too delicious to resist.

I read a whole bunch of recipes, and saw variations on a similar theme.  Most say to boil or steam the 'chokes first, then add seasoning, and then grill them briefly.  So I started by steaming my artichokes, like I always do.

To prep the artichokes, I cut off the tip of the artichoke with a sharp knife, snip off the tips of each of the leaves with scissors if they have thorns, trim off all but 1" of the stem, and then peel the outer skin off the remaining stem.  But then I take it a step further than most: I split my artichokes and remove the fuzzy choke before I start cooking them.  It's easy to do, saves me time later, and actually makes my 'chokes cook more quickly.  All you have to do is balance the artichoke on its trimmed top, and slice it in half from the stem all the way down.  Then, take a small spoon, and press the edge of the spoon right along the bottom edge of the fuzzy choke.

Use a spoon to press along the line between the fuzz and the artichoke heart

The fuzz will yield much more easily than the actual flesh of the artichoke, so with a little care you can easily scoop out all of the fuzz without removing the yummy heart.  Once the choke is out, I usually flip the spoon over, insert it between the leaves just above the point where the tips go from purple to white, and pull down, to remove the lowest layer of leaves.  I then run the 'choke under cool water to rinse out any remaining fuzz and loose lower leaves, and it seems to prevent further browning.  (I don't worry about a little bit of browning, but you can dip the cut side into lemon juice and water to stop it from browning if it bothers you.)

Scoop everything out, including the purple-tipped lowest leaves

I then take my halved, hollowed artichokes and put them into my steamer, stems-up, to cook.  In this condition, they only take about 12 minutes to steam, instead of the 20 minutes required for whole artichokes.

I prop them up, in the hopes that this will cook them more evenly,
but they usually fall over during cooking

Most of the recipes I had read called for brushing the cooled artichokes (which you need to cut in half and de-choke after the fact if you steamed them whole) with a combination of oil and seasonings, but one called for marinating the 'chokes overnight before grilling them.  I decided to go with the brush-on method first, since I had 4 artichokes to work with.

I combined a few tablespoons of oil, a teaspoon or so of lemon juice, a few tablespoons of chopped garlic, and maybe half a teaspoon of the garlic juice out of my pre-chopped garlic jar.  I brushed both sides of the artichokes with the mixture, including the inside of the hollow, sprinkled them with kosher salt flakes, and then put them on the grill, face-down, for a few minutes until they browned.  Then I turned them over, spooned the chopped garlic into the bases of the artichoke halves, and then gave them a few more minutes on the other side.  Oh yeah, and I was grilling mine alongside the steak I was having for dinner that night.  (T was working late, so I grilled his steak for him when he got home).

Bases filled with garlic bits

A delicious dinner

The resulting artichokes were a mixed success.  Because I just brushed the outside of the artichokes with the seasoning, the leaves themselves didn't get a whole lot of seasoning on them, especially once you got past the first few outer layers of leaves.  They were basically just plain, steamed artichoke leaves.  However, the interior leaves and the heart were absolutely delicious, since the hollow held a lot of the juice, and the grilled garlic bits were a delicious bonus.

So the text time around, I decided to try this marinated artichoke recipe.  I marinate most of my veggies in a combination of oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic, salt and pepper, so this sounded like a pretty good mix.  Because I wasn't teaching last week, I used my usual technique to steam these first thing in the morning.  I threw them into a ice bath to cool them off quickly and stop them from cooking, and then put them into a Ziploc bag filled with the marinade.  I didn't have fresh ginger, so I added about 1 1/2 tsp. of ground ginger instead.  Then I let them soak all day in the fridge, flipping them once.

Steamed, marinated 'chokes

I drained them as best I could before throwing them on the grill, and used a similar cooking technique to the first time.  More of the marinade definitely dripped out on the grill, and I think it took them a tiny bit longer to cook because they were so much more juicy than the first time.  In this case, the flavor definitely penetrated much further into the artichokes, which was a good thing.  However, the ground ginger was a bit of a mistake -- I put in too much, meaning the ginger flavor was a little too strong, and worse, it made the marinade gritty.  So I would marinate them again to get the seasoning all the way through, but I would use the garlic-and-lemon seasoning next time around, or possibly my tried-and-true veggie marinade.

What other veggies do you grill, and how do you season them?