Garlic and parsley artichokes
( Carciofi trifolati )

Recipe for garlic and parsley artichokes

Preparation and cooking

• - Prepare artichokes.
  Clean artichokes and cut into segments to have eight pieces from each.
  Immediately plunge your segments into the water where you've squeezed half lemon.
  Please, leave a piece of stem attached as you can see in the picture.
• - Prepare other ingredients.
  Peel garlic clove.
  Clean, wash and chop parsley. Eventually set aside some whole leaves if you want to garnish your dish.
  Prepare broth.
• - The last step: cooking.
  Let garlic brown in olive oil over on very gentle heat for few minutes, stirring frequently.
  Meanwhile, drain artichokes very well.
  Turn off the stove.
  Remove garlic and add artichokes.
  Turn on the stove again and cook artichokes on a high flame for a few minutes to dry.
  Remember to stir often.
  Now add a couple of ladles hot broth and parsley.
  Season with salt and pepper, if liked.
  Stir and continue cooking until all cooking juice is well reduced (estimated time: 15 minutes).
  Add more hot broth if necessary.
  But keep in mind cooking times depend a lot on your personal taste and artichoke size.

Just before serving

• - Your artichoke dish is ready to serve.
  If you want, you can sprinkle your dish with very finely chopped parsley just before serving.

Note

Tips

• - This artichoke recipe I've just described is made with vegetable broth and not with wine. Matching wine with artichokes often gives bad results.
• - We prefer artichokes with thorny leaves to make this recipe.
• - If you don't like garlic don't worry! Brown a little young onion instead of garlic.

Menu planning

• - This artichoke side dish may accompany meat (with no tomato sauce according to me), fish (baked or boiled or steamed), eggs and cheeses

Healthy eating

• - Artichokes cooked in oil with garlic and parsley is a complete and interesting dish as you can see reading its nutrition facts. First of all it is a very low calorie dish. Then it isn't rich in fat and sugars and so is ideal for everybody.
  But you must be very careful on the amount of fat in cooking. A tablespoon of olive oil is more than enough as long as you use a good non-stick pan. Don't increase the amount of olive oil. There are 90 kcal and 10 g additional fat in every tablespoon. In this case I mean a tablespoon as the spoon with which you eat your soup.
• - Please, keep in mind artichokes are rich in water and fiber too.
• - Artichokes have a lot of cynarin too. It is located especially in the pulp of their leaves but also in dried leaves and stems. Cynarin increases bile production, makes easy the digestion, helps all liver functions, lowers HDL/LDL ratio. This reduces cholesterol levels which diminishes the risk for arteriosclerosis and coronary heart disease.

What's the right wine for " Garlic and parsley artichokes "?

Please, don't match wine with artichokes.