Cooking for Alan – Dinner #9 Steamed Artichokes with Aioli
Since my part-time work requires travel, usually lasting one week at a time, I’ve been trying to create a special “Cooking for Alan” dinner on the weeks that I’m home. This week I was able to tackle another dinner that included three new recipes. I’m delighted to report that I’ve now prepared 44 of Ina Garten’s recipes from her Cooking for Jeffrey book!
Menu
Artichokes with Lemon-Thyme Aioli
Anna’s Tomato Tart
Fish and Lobster Cakes
As usual, I took several liberties with parts of the recipes in terms of ingredients. So as you scroll through the photos and captions I’ll be sure and point out the differences from Ina Garten’s original and Belinda’s adaptation. Simply click on the highlighted links to find Ina’s original version. I plan to feature each one of the recipes from the menu above in 3 separate blog posts. So stay tuned for the others to come out within a few days.
Artichokes with Lemon-Thyme Aioli
First things first…I despise tarragon. Ina’s original recipe calls for using fresh Tarragon in the dipping sauce/aioli. No way! I have flashbacks to the horrible scrambled eggs my mother-in-law would cook us that had loads of fresh tarragon throughout them and on top. For those of you who are huge Ina Garten fans you will understand when I say that I hate Tarragon as much as she hates Cilantro. I happen to love Cilantro. I also love Ina…but not enough to choke down tarragon. It’s weird because there aren’t many food flavors I can’t tolerate…but tarragon happens to be one of them.
One great thing about Ina’s recipes is that they’ve been tested often and are full of details. So when she tells you to use room temperature lemons and egg yolks for this aioli , she means it. To achieve this lovely mayonnaise texture, you must use room temperature ingredients to allow it to emulsify.
Secondly, don’t let the pretty picture of the finished product fool you. Preparing fresh artichokes is a pain in the _ss. So much effort and time for such little reward. I absolutely love using artichoke hearts in my cooking…but peeling off these very “earthy” leaves one by one and then to scrape about 1/2 teaspoon of tender flesh into your mouth is NOT WORTH IT! My dear Alan and I decided that the leaves of the artichoke are simply a vessel for eating the delicious, homemade aioli. There aren’t many Ina recipes I wouldn’t try again…but this is one of them. Maybe it was the freshness of the artichokes that was the problem? I’ve never purchased them…only had them in restaurants before. Nope…I’ll absolutely make the aioli with my own twist by using fresh thyme from my garden…but the artichoke that was hard to choke down can be on the “not again” list.
So if there are any of my readers out there who are fresh artichoke lovers…please convince me to try again by leaving me a comment below.
