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Recipe: Roasted Artichokes with Beurre Blanc

Recipe: Roasted Artichokes with Beurre Blanc

It’s peak artichoke season right now! And if you didn’t already have enough reasons to love this beautiful vegetable, we have another: our favourite roasted artichoke recipe.

We love making this dish as a side for family dinners, and it comes at the perfect time if you’re looking for something unique to add to your Easter table.

Preparing artichokes can be complicated and cause a lot of us to reach for the canned option at the grocery store.

However, with this simple recipe you’ll have an easy way to enjoy the whole artichoke, fresh from the produce aisle. To top it off, we made Julia Child’s classic beurre blanc (white butter sauce) to add a creamy, rich sauce to the final product.

We hope you love this combination of fresh artichokes and creamy melted butter as much as we do!

Roasted Artichokes

INGREDIENTS

  • 3 fresh artichokes
  • ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 tsp sea salt
  • 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
  • 6 garlic cloves
  • 6 sprigs of fresh thyme

INSTRUCTIONS

  • Preheat the oven to 350F.
  • Start by trimming the stems. If desired, you can peel them and cook them along with the artichokes.
  • Remove the tough outer layers.
  • Snip the tips using kitchen scissors.
  • Using a knife, cut off the top then cut the artichoke in half lengthwise.
  • Remove the fuzzy choke using a paring knife or spoon.
  • Place artichokes in a baking dish with the cut side up.
  • Drizzle the artichokes in Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
  • Season with a generous amount of sea salt and black pepper.
  • Place a peeled garlic clove inside each hollowed artichoke cavity.
  • Sprinkle with fresh thyme.
  • Flip the artichokes so that they are cut side down. Cover the pan with foil.
  • Bake in the oven for 30-40 mins or until the artichokes are tender and the tips are golden brown. Remove the foil for the final 5-10 mins to allow for extra caramelization of the tips.

Julia Child’s Beurre Blanc

(white butter sauce)

directly from Mastering the Art of French Cooking

“This famous sauce originated in Nantes on the Loire river, and is traditionally served with pike, brochet au beurre blanc. Warm, thick, creamy and butter-colored, beurre blanc is actually nothing but warm butter flavored with shallots, wine, vinegar, salt, and pepper. The trick in making it is to keep the butter from turning oily; that is, it must retain its creamy appearance. A chemical process takes place once the wine and vinegar base is boiled down and the acids are well concentrated, so that when the butter is gradually beaten in, the milk solids in the butter remain in suspension rather than sinking to the bottom of the pan as they usually do when butter is melted. For this reaction to take place, the initial amount of vinegar must be a strong one. Once the creaming process has started, you can go on beating in butter to double the amount of that given in the recipe. You can also beat in less but if you do so, the sauce may have too acidic a taste.”

For 1 1/2 cups.

INGREDIENTS

  • A 6-cup, medium-weight, enamelled saucepan
  • 1 / 4 cup white wine vinegar
  • 1 / 4 cup dry white wine or lemon juice
  • 1 Tb very finely minced shallots or green onions
  • 1 / 4 tsp of salt
  • ⅛ tsp white pepper
  • A wire whip
  • 12 ounces (3 sticks) best quality, chilled butter cut into 24 pieces
  • Salt and pepper
  • Lemon juice

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Boil liquids, shallots or onions, and seasonings until they have reduced to about a 1 1/2 tablespoons.
  2. Remove saucepan from heat and immediately beat in 2 pieces of chilled butter.
  3. As the butter softens and creams in the liquid, beat in another pieces.
  4. Then set the saucepan over very low heat and, beating constantly, continue adding successive pieces of butter as each previous piece has almost creamed into the sauce.
  5. The sauce will be thick and ivory-colored, the consistency of a light hollandaise.
  6. Immediately remove from heat as soon as all the butter has been used.
  7. Beat in additional seasonings to taste.
  8. Transfer the sauce to a barely warmed bowl, and serve.

How to Eat

Once you’ve roasted and caramelized your artichokes and made your sauce, you’re ready to eat!

Drizzle some of the sauce over the artichokes. You can also peel off the leaves and dip them in your beurre blanc. You’ll notice that the tender fleshy part of the underside of the leaves is the best part to eat, so use your teeth to scrape off the soft fleshy part of the leaf and discard the rest.

As you get closer to the centre of the artichoke, the leaves will get softer and you’ll be able to eat the whole leaf.

Once you reach the heart, slice the base and stem of the artichoke, dip it in your sauce, and enjoy.

Our favourite kitchen tools for this recipe:

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