Steamed Artichokes with a Garlic Aioli

I found these purple beauties in my market and remembered how much I loved eating steamed artichokes as a kid. We would dip the leaves in drawn butter before running them through our teeth. Half the pleasure in eating them was the fun.

Calling it garlic aioli is a bit redundant because ail is the French word for garlic. Oli is the Provençial word for oil, so the two words combined is aioli. Aioli is found in the Northern Mediterranean particularly in Provence and in Eastern Spain.

There are many variations of aioli out there including “cheater aioli” made buy mixing garlic into mayonnaise. The traditional form of aioli is just crushed garlic and emulsified olive oil, but egg yolks and mustard are often added for thickness and emulsification.

The base of any aioli is a garlic paste. If you have a mortar and pestle, that is a great way to make the paste, but you can also acheive this by finely mincing the garlic and adding salt and crushing it with the side of your knife blade until it forms into a paste.

There are many ways to enjoy aioli but not limited to… a dipping sauce for roasted baby potatoes, dip with crudités, mix into chicken salad, egg salad or tuna salad for a more flavorful mayonnaise, dipping sauce for steamed artichokes, sandwich spread, and of course a dollop in your Bouillabaisse, the spectacular fish stew from Provence.

Steamed Artichokes

artichokes

a quartered lemon

Tear off any tough small petals at the bottom of the artichoke. Cut about ½ inch off the bottom of the stem. Peel the stem (it is delicious too!) Rub the stem with lemon to keep it from turning browning. With a serrated knife, slice off about an inch the top of the artichoke. Snip the sharp points off each of the leaves. Fill a large pot with about 1” of water. Add the lemon wedges used from before. Add a steamer basket into the pot and then place the artichokes in the basket. Bring water to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to low. Steam the artichokes for 35-45 minutes, depending on their size. They are finished when a fork can very easily pierce it.

Eat the leaves by scraping them through your teeth to get the fleshy part off the leaves. The most tender leaves are closest to the center. Make sure to have a discard bowl for the used leaves. To eat the heart, cut the artichoke in half and scoop out the furry choke completely, which sits between the cup-shaped artichoke heart and the tender inner leaves. Once you peel off and eat the leaves, you are left with the delicious heart and stem (my favorite part).

Aioli

(Makes about ¾ cup Aioli)

1 clove garlic

½ teaspoon salt

1 large egg yolk

½ teaspoon Dijon mustard

½ cup olive oil

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Peel the garlic clove and finely mined it. Add the salt directly on top of the garlic on the cutting board and work the side of your life blade back and forth, pressing down hard, until the garlic forms a paste. In a bowl whisk together the egg yolk and the mustard. Add the garlic pate and whisk well. In a very very slow and steady stream, add the olive oil and whisk vigorously until emulsified and slightly fluffy (make sure your bowl and whisk are completely dry to avoid breaking the oil as well as adding the oil in a very slow and steady stream.) Whisk in the lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper.