How to prepare a Globe Artichoke in under 1 minute. This will get you the best bit of the Globe Artichoke with the most minimal hassle. I saw it done in a very similar way in about 30 seconds by a market stall holder in an episode of Yotam Ottolenghi’s ‘Mediterranean Feast’ TV series on food from Morroco, Instanbul, and Tunisia etc. This changed my mind completely about how to eat them.

After some time stuffing around trying to prep these things I just did not realise it was so easy to get them stripped down so fast and with little hassle. You can rip through a bundle of them and actually get something worth eating in a few minutes.

You can stick with the method that simply cuts them in half and trims the outer edges off if you have small fresh golf ball sized fresh flower heads – but once they get larger and older you need to reduce them to their core quickly and efficiently.

You end up with a disc of solid edible artichoke flesh.

The key is to start at the stem base and work back to the top and middle.

You will simply need a cutting board and some space to push all the chaff you cut off, a bowl of water with some lemon juice added to it, a sharp knife and a round spoon like a soup spoon that is hardy enough to scrape with.

The steps are :

Trim the base stem off making sure to take off the base leaves at the same time.

Lay the artichoke on an angle withe the top of the flower facing down and then work your way around the artichoke cutting from the base down and trim  all the outer leaves off. You can see when you are cutting off enough to expose the good flesh. Be generous with your cuts so that there is more taken off than you think you need – so it all happens faster.

Work your way around and under cut again hard into the base of the leaves and remove the next layer. Again – work your way around  and under cut hard into the base of the leaves and remove the next layer.

Trim the top off close to the disc you have exposed.

Use a spoon to scrape the inner surface out of the choke. Push hard into it and twist the spoon out towards the outer edge to remove any part of the choke that you can easily scrape. You will find the very base layer looks a little furry but is usually actually firm flesh that is ok to eat.

Throw it into the acidulated water and rinse the whole thing on both sides.

Leave it to sit for a minute in the water to stop any browning. If you work fast you will get very little colour change from the fresh air exposure.

You can always go back and trim off anything left that seems an unworthy texture to cook and eat.

It is now ready to cook any way you like.

I have slowed down here to take the photo snaps so there is more browning than I would usually have on the end product.

Here’s my suggestion for a quick small tasty side dish.

Quickly slice the Globe Artichoke disc up fairly finely and throw it into a small pan with some olive oil. Add some garlic, basil and chopped spinach. Toss them for a minute or so and let them brown a little. Throw in a few small fresh tomatoes and squash them and let them blend. Pour in a small amount of water and let the whole thing gather together and steam off for about 1 more minute and then serve.