April 20, 2026

Artichokes

Had the day to myself today, so I decided I’d look down the recipe list and pick something to try. I discovered that artichokes are actually in season, so I decided I’d go through the various recipes in the season six episode “The Choke’s on You”.

Essentially, Alton builds up to making marinated artichokes to use in a pasta salad. It begins by creating some Herb Oil to use for marinating. Making it couldn’t be easier. First, I gathered up the ingredients.

Then, after stuffing all the herbs in the jar (side note, I used lemon zest instead of orange zest) and heating up the oil, you just pour it all together and let it sit overnight.

Then it was on to prepping some Broiled Chokes. I started by gathering up all of the artichokes, some lemonized water, and a few tools.

I then set off on removing all the leaves, splitting the hearts in half, cutting out the choke, and scraping out all of the little nettles inside. In the episode, Alton uses a peeler but I found that a paring knife worked way better for me. Even so, preparing six artichokes for broiling was very labor intensive, not to mention incredibly messy. I am not sure I really would ever do that again. Also, even with the lemon water, dipping my tools, and so forth, I could not for the life of me keep them from browning.

I then tossed the artichokes in olive oil, salt, and pepper, and put them under the broiler. The comments on the recipe say they come out very tough, so I decided I’d really roast them up good. I left them for 10 minutes cut side up, then turned them and gave them another 5 minutes under high broil. They came out looking like they were grilled, but they were for sure cooked and tender.

We tried a few, and they were fine. Nice and tender, tasted like your average grilled or roasted veggie. I then cut the rest up and put them into another jar, ready to receive some herb oil marinade tomorrow morning.

In the morning, I strained the jar of herb oil into the jar of cut up chokes, and left that to sit all day. I had plenty of herb oil, enough to marinate the broiled chokes and leave another little jar left over.

Six or seven hours later, I turned to using them in Artichoke Pasta Salad. Preparing it was simple. Rather than farfale, I used Kaizen pasta because it’s gluten free, and high in fiber/protein.

Side note, rather than cut up and mix in some chicken, I served this as a side dish to some grilled chicken thighs. It was delicious, the herb oil dressing was a fantastic, earthy background, the marinated artichokes were a tasty addition, and it complimented the chicken perfectly.

Herb Oil

• Crowd: 3/5
• Ease: 5/5
• Substituted lemon zest for the orange zest

Broiled Chokes

• Crowd: 3/5
• Ease: 2/5
• Used a paring knife rather than a peeler to trim the heart and choke

Artichoke Pasta Salad

• Crowd: 4/5
• Ease: 4/5
• Used Kaizen lupini bean fusilli
• While I did marinate the artichoke stems, I left them out of the salad because they were very chewy
• Left out the chicken, served as a side dish with grilled chicken