Are Artichokes nice, i've never tried tried them?

Question

Can you eat all the spikey plates on the outside or is it just the heart that can be eaten?

Answer 1

I love artichokes! I grew up eating them. :) I boil mine for about an hour. Make sure you cut the stem off. I like to scrape the good "meat" off the inside of the outer leaves. Then when you get to the flimsy purple ones in the middle, I pull those off and eat the bottoms of those (be careful! the other end is sharp!). I use a grapefruit spoon to get rid of the choke, the hairs on the inside, but if it's cool enough sometimes you can pull them out in clumps. Then you can eat the heart, the best part of the entire thing. It's so good! My mom likes to dip her leaves in mayo and I admit that if it's a seasoned mayo (mmm... chipotle mayo...), it's pretty good, but I like mine plain. Some people even dip them in butter.

If you'd really to see a wide variety of recipes, though, I suggest going to the Food Network. Bon apetit!

Answer 2

Artichokes are wonderful, but can be a bit daunting for someone to eat for the first time. You can follow any of the directions other people have given on here, but if you want to eat them in the best way...wink, wink; I am just a bit biased. My mother-in-law, who was Sicilian and an unbelievable cook made the best baked stuffed artichokes I have ever eaten. This is a traditional holiday or celebration type dish. She would clean them well and snip off the Sharp and woody lower leaves and then stuff the outer leaves and the top down into the area where the choke has been removed, with her own stuffing mixture with pine nuts added. Then she would put a whole sheet pan of them into a 350 degree oven for about one hour. After the first half hour, she would pull them out, baste them with some good olive oil, and place them back into the oven to finish. Sometimes they would take a bit over the hour, she would just pull the tray out and pull out a few of the leaves, to test the doneness. This is a time consuming dish, but it is excellent. I do occationally eat steamed with lemon and butter, but the baked stuffed are just incredible. Enjoy and have a good day.

Answer 3

Depending on how old they are before they're cut, you tend to only eat the base of the individual leaves, the spikey plates as you call them. Yes they are lovely with a nice nutty flavour. With young artichokes, once you have got to the base you can eat the whole thing. With older ones you will need to scrape out the seeds from the base. The younger they are, the more tender and the more of the leave and base you can eat.

How to eat artichokes
This does have its comic side, with ever-mounting piles of discarded leaves scarred with rabbit-toothed marks! Artichokes can be served cold or, perhaps better, just tepid. Pull off one leaf at a time, dip it into the sauce and eat the tender rounded part at the base. When you arrive at the heart, cut it into sections with a knife and fork and eat with the rest of the sauce. Don’t forget to have plenty of napkins, some finger bowls, and a large plate for the discarded leaves.

Answer 4

Artichokes are great and for some are an acquired taste and they require a little work to eat. You basically cut off the prickly leaf ponty tips with a scissors and take off some of the harder outer leaves completely. Then you can either steam them or boil them in salted water until tender. Melt a stick of butter and as you peel each leaf you dip the end into the melted butter and draw the leaf bottom with your teeth to scrape off the tasty flesh. As you work toward the inner leaves they become more tender and more of the leaf can be eaten. You finally get into the heart and discard the hairy part and dip the heart in the butter. You can also eat a part of the bottom stem as well.They are expensive too but they are delicious.

Answer 5

Artichokes are lovely, but you need to get used to the taste. If you've never tried one before, you'll probably hate it and say (as a friend said), "it tastes like plants". You can eat the ends of the spikey leaves once you get rid of the out layer or two, then once you reach the insides, you have to remove the hairs and eat the heart (the best bit ofcourse!). You might find it easier to cook them first though as the taste of a raw artichoke might not be something you're familiar with. If you're gonna cook them, try stewing them with other veggies and meats (they taste good with tomatoes) and don't eat any of the hairs or your mouth will feel like ultra dry and wierd for hours! - seriously - the hairs are so small that they stick to the inside of your mouth. Happy eating.

Answer 6

I Love Artichokes!!! They are fantastic on Pizza. I have only made stuffed artichokes once, and had to have someone teach me how to make them, I have since forgotten. I am going to learn again though because they are so good!! I always get them when I go out to eat if the restaurant offers them. The hearts are good, and the soft part of the plates, or leaves as I call them, are good. Don't eat the entire leaf, just the soft underside of them. My family does not care for them, so that is why I have only made them once.

Answer 7

The artichoke looks impenetrable and intimidating, as does a pineapple, but unlike a pineapple, the meat of the artichoke is harder to find-and there's a lot less of it. Time spent cleaning and paring artichokes down before you cook them means you won't have to eat around those inedible parts after you cook them.
Artichokes dehydrate rapidly so as soon as you get home, put them in plastic bags with a little sprinkle of water (not too much water or the artichokes will get moldy,) and store them in the vegetable bin of the refrigerator.

Refresh an artichoke that looks a little dehydrated by cutting the brown part off the bottom of the stem, and putting the artichoke in a bowl of water. Cooked or raw artichokes will keep about a week in the high-humidity bin of your refrigerator.

Preparation
Artichokes may be the most arduous of vegetables to prepare, depending on what you want to do with them and your level of patience. The simplest way is to lop off the stem so the artichoke sits upright, and then cut an inch or so off the top. You can then boil, steam, or microwave them, and then do the rest of the work by eating around the inedible parts. Broccoli stems and artichoke stems are often needlessly discarded. Peel and steam them with the rest of the artichoke, and then they can be eaten as is or chopped and put into stuffing to go inside prepared artichokes.

Prepare artichokes for stuffing by removing the stem as explained above, and then trim ½ inch or so from the tops of the outer leaves using scissors. This will eliminate the prickly needles that protrude from the tops of the leaves, and give a more attractive look. Cook using your method of choice. Pull back the leaves to uncover the inedible center portion, and scrape out the very inner leaves (called the cone) and the fuzzy choke. (This can be done while the artichoke is raw, but it is more difficult that way.)

Stuff the center of the cooked artichokes with breadcrumbs or sausage, and put some stuffing in between the leaves as well and bake. Steamed or boiled artichokes are delicious served cold when stuffed with a shrimp or crab salad.

Artichokes need to be completely edible to use for deep frying, or salads. Do this by removing the very bottom leaves, and slicing ½ inch off the bottom of the stem. Hold the artichoke in one hand with the thumb positioned on the bottom portion of each leaf, and bend back each leaf until it snaps naturally. Tear off the top part. As you get closer to the center of the artichoke, only pale green and yellow inner portions will show and the edible portion of each leaf will be larger. Remove anything that looks tough from the bottom portion of the artichoke, and taste if you're not sure. Trim any dark green portions, particularly from the bottom, with a sharp knife. Rub cut portions with a cut lemon to prevent discoloration. Halve the artichoke lengthwise and remove the inner cone and choke with a spoon. It is now ready to be used as is, cut it into quarters, or thinly sliced.
To eat the leaves, pull off a leaf by grabbing the pointed end. The wider end is a thin layer of edible flesh. Put about half of the wider, edible end of the leaf into your mouth and scrape off the flesh with your teeth. Repeat with each remaining leaf. The edible portion of the leaf becomes larger as you get closer to the center of the artichoke.


The leaves will become almost white with purple tips just before you get to the very center. Be careful of these leaves because their ends are prickly.


If the fuzzy patch/choke guarding the heart of the artichoke (considered the best part) hasn't been removed, scrape it off with a spoon or cut the heart away from it with a butter knife.

Answer 8

No u dont eat the spikey part u pull of the first two or three rows of leaves completly, then you cut the top of what is left down a bit to the tender part which is the heart,

They are delicious and also very good for the liver, they can be prepared in many different ways,can fry them by first putting them in a batter with two eggs and a little flour until thick with water to smooth it out, or stuffed,or my favorite way is on the barbecue,
This way u dont take off the outer leaves with the spikes u sort of smash it a bit face down on something hard,counter or such just to loosen the leaves a bit, then sprinkle it with salt chopped garlic very finely and fresh mint leaves u can get them at the grocery stores, and then a great drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, put them on the barbecue until they get coloured and softened beware not to over cook them,

They are simple delicious this way pulling off the leaves one by one and eating the tender part at the bottom until you get to the heart which is tasty and tender,
Hope i didnt make u too hungry and try it out really great!!

Answer 9

There is plenty people telling you that Artichokes are nice but no one has mentioned what kind of artichoke.the artichoke that every one is-writing about is Globe artichoke, nice but there is also the Jerusalem artichoke which is grown IN the ground like a potato well I think it's a bit tasteless and makes you pass a lot of wind fart in other words.The choice is yours .

Answer 10

If you remove the layers of the outside "plates" you can eat them. But, usually the heart is what people tend to it. Try them cooked first, like on a pizza or something. Very good!