cardoons

back to the more familiar world of western european foods, but with an unfamiliar ingredient. i recently noticed that cardoons have been available at the supermarket lately. i've never cooked with them, and i have rarely eaten them - perhaps once or twice at restaurants. they've also never been at the forefront of any dish i've had, so i paid little attention to them. this seemed like the perfect opportunity to fix that and figure out exactly what they taste like and how to cook with them.

cardoons look like big celery stalks. a bit more fiberous. they are in fact part of the artichoke family and their flavor is certainly much akin to an artichoke than any sort of celery. to prepare them, i peeled some of the outer fibers off and chopped each stalk into smaller sections to make it easier to cook. the edges of each stalk are also a bit "thorny", so i cut all of that off too. i tasted one raw - not good. rather bitter in fact. perhaps young cardoons would be edible.

i boiled them in lemony salted water for 10 minutes to soften them up. at this point you could eat them as is with just a bit of salt and olive oil. like i said, they have a nice mild artichoke flavor. i saved half the stalk for later use and cut up the rest into smaller chunks. i combined this with some cooked eggplants, tomatoes, onions, garlic and parsley. a delicious and easy intro to cardoons, perfect with some crusty bread and drizzled with olive oil.