Artichokes with Salty Butter
The growing season often stretches across the full sommer, before they are ready to be brought in. When finally harvested, they carry a quiet sense of reward.
Ingredients:
2 artichokes
1/2 lemon
3 liter (13 cups) water
3 teaspoon salt
How to make it:
1. If you have artichokes from your own garden. Put them in a bucket of water with a dash of vinegar for about an hour. This will clean them for unwelcome bugs.
2. Pour water, add lemon, and salt in a pot. Let it come to a boil.
3. Add artichokes in the boiling water and let simmer for about 40 min.
4. Lift the artichokes out of the water and place them on a dish.
5. Enjoy this perfect starter with real dairy butter.
Each leaf has a small meaty part at the bottom, and at the end you will discover the tender artichoke heart. Scrape the hair off and eat it with some extra butter and salt.
Steamed or gently prepared, leaf by leaf, they invite a slower way of eating, one that lingers, that appreciates texture and subtle flavour. There is nothing immediate about them, and that is precisely their appeal.
Served at the table, the artichoke becomes more than a vegetable. It reflects the effort behind it: the long summer, the tending of soil, and the belief that some things are worth waiting for.