Fried Minted Artichokes – A new addition to the Spring garden
These fried artichoke hearts are perfect for Spring. Every spring, Diane and I go through the annual “What veggies are we going to plant?” ritual. First the weather starts to warm and we begin to crave more than leafy greens, sugar snap peas, radishes, and carrots. We’ll hit Home Depot and nearly buy a bunch of boring varieties which we don’t really want but that is all they have because is it too early in the season. We’ll barely hold off on purchasing, then two days later the weather will drop winter cold again and we congratulate ourselves on not buying too early. Repeat two more times.
Fried Artichoke Hearts
Finally we can’t take it anymore and the inevitable excursions to our favorite nurseries and farmers’ markets takes place. By now the cool stuff is available and we buy twice the amount of varieties of what we originally intended. Mostly tomatoes, bell peppers, chilies, and eggplant.
Good nurseries and growers are dangerous. The 3″ pots costing a mere $2-4 each. We’ll find some of our favorite varieties: tomatoes like the Anna Russian, Kentucky Beefsteak, Sun Golds (which we don’t even need to buy since it always reseeds itself, but we do anyway), chilies like the padron, shishito, a medley of habaneros.
Of course in searching for the favorites, we’ll discover a bunch of new-to-us types and have to get a few of those. Somehow the bill ends up being $70-$80 of $3 or $4 items by the time we hit the register. Then a couple days later we think of a favorite we forgot to get and head back to the nurseries.
Repeat two more times.
Growing Artichokes
One veggie I always want, but we never buy, is to grow artichokes. They just take up soooo much room and I can’t convince Diane to sacrifice some of her radish or beet soil allocation. I’m not giving up my arugula space either and it is unthinkable to reduce any of the tomatoes or chilies growing room.
But this year we’ve added a couple more raised planters, and I finally badgered Diane enough that she relented one corner to artichokies. Especially after reminding her that she could use the blossoms for styling and table decorations!
The main reason I want to grow the artichokes is for the baby artichokes. I love them. So cute and tender I could just eat them up. Wait… I do eat them up. Strip them, then slice, fry, salt, and devour them. Sounds a little S&M like, but it sure is tasty.
Here’s a recipe for fried artichoke hearts. It’s one of our favorite ways to cook up the baby artichokes, Fried Minted Baby Artichokes. Tasty little tidbits we tend to eat much more than we intend to. One note on making them, be very liberal in stripping away the outer leaves. As a general rule, the darker the color the leaf, then tougher it will be after frying. Usually I’ll strip almost half of the leaves off of store bought baby artichokes.
If you like the crunchy outer leaves feel free to strip a little less. You can always strip more leaves off after frying if you change your mind. You can also make this with the “adult” artichokes, but you might want to scoop out the choke (the little hairs over the heart.)
We’d love to hear what everyone else is planning for or excited to grow this year. What’s your favorite varieties or what are you trying to make room for. Enjoy these fried artichoke hearts!
-Todd
crispy crunchy tender baby artichokes
Fried Minted Artichoke Recipe
Ingredients
- 6 Baby Artichokes
- 5 cloves Garlic
- 20 Mint Leaves (about), finely sliced
- 1/2 Lemon , cut into wedges
- Sea Salt , to taste
- oil for frying
Instructions
Prep the Artichokes
- Strip away the outer leaves until they are a very light green (usually about 1/3 -1/2 of the outer leaves). Trim the end of the stem and the top of the artichokes. Slice in half.
Fry
- Pour enough oil in a large saute pan to fill 1/4" deep. Heat over med-high heat. When oil is hot, place artichokes cut side down in a single layer (fry in batches if necessary) scatter garlic cloves between the artichokes and add half of the mint.
- Fry until garlic and artichokes until lightly golden (about 2-3 minutes) then flip and fry until just done (about another 2 minutes). Make sure to pull garlic out just before being it is fully golden as it will continue to cook a bit more after being removed from oil and will become bitter if overcooked.
- Drain on paper towels, squeeze a little lemon juice over artichokes, season with sea salt and toss with remaining mint leaves. Plate with additional lemon wedges. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Nutrition Information per Serving
Here’s more great artichoke recipe ideas!
Beautiful images!
Artichokes are my favorite thing ever. I stuffed peppers with artichokes last week and it was amazing. These look unreal. I’ve never cut down my own hearts like this – but you make it look pretty simple!
What a great post and beautiful pictures. I can eat artichokes every day. I must try your version.
My dad grew artichokes in my childhood garden one year. I still remember how much better they are than anything you can buy at a store!
I can’t wait for our first big heirloom Gold Medal variety tomato. They weigh 1-2 lbs each and we eat them raw all summer with a little flaky sea salt and a sprinkle of pepper. This year I’m growing shiso leaves for the first time and can’t wait to munch on those too!
OMG. I think I just had an orgasm from that photo!
I just Peruvian Blueberries. Technically, they’re a guava plant, but I’m obsessed with the nursery that is at the Leukadia farmers market.
I’ve yet to taste artichoke. Your beautiful photography has me drooling and can’t wait to get my hands on this yummyness 🙂
We planted an artichoke plant last year but the wind kept stripping the leaves off. It came back this spring, so we’ll see what happens! They are one of my favorites that we don’t eat nearly often enough so I’m crossing my fingers. This recipe looks amazing!
Some of the asparagus didn’t completely come back this year, which is a bummer because this was the first year it would be strong enough and big enough to harvest. Rhubarb is gigantic already and arugula is going strong. I missed the window to plant peas from seeds. Our strawberries are gone 🙁 because it got so hot too early last summer that it fried them. Not warm enough for tomatoes and things like that yet. It was 32 this morning today!
We had planned to just do a small garden this year since we’d be moving this summer, but now we aren’t moving so we will see! I planted too much last summer and combined with the unusually long, hot summer I was not very motivated to take care of it so I will probably cut back this year.
I always dedicate half my space to greens. Sturdy kale, rainbow chard, and collards rule supreme in the PNW climate. That crispy crunchy minted artichoke looks delectable!
We love our greens too! Winter and spring we have all we could desire, but come summer we are envy supreme of your PNW gardens!
Mmm. Artichokes. I swear, they’re probably one of my favourite foods of all time.
I’m not much of an artichoke fan which tells you I’ve never had really good ones, doesn’t it? Anything with mint is okay in my book though!
These look…amazing! Both the size (baby, so cute!), the flavors, the photos, just…stunning!
I admit that I love fresh foods, almost never buy anything frozen, but I will say that TJ’s frozen artichoke hearts save my life. No salt, no oil, just the chokes. But your post inspires me to use fresh again, despite the work 🙂
Uh *swoon*, not only do I love gardening adventures- I am planning my first ever garden this year; but your photos are so beautiful. Food is so beautiful, sometimes I am at a loss for words!
You should just grow your own vegetable seedlings! It isn’t that difficult and it would open up a world of possibilities. Ever paged through a seed catalogue?…you would have hundreds, if not thousands, of tasty options to choose from.
We do grow seedlings too. We have one whole side section of the garden for propagating. Some things we just prefer to get them already started for us. We only have so much raised space, and anything ground level gets puppy pawed! But seed catalogs are fantastic!
One advantage of local nursery shopping is that good nurseries will get varieties which will usually do well with the local climate, while with seeds catalogs you usually don’t have that specialized info.
My boyfriend LOVES ‘chokes- he will die for this recipe. Thanks for sharing!
I always look for baby ‘chokes in California, but it’s usually the wrong season. We never see them in Denver, and I love them so much. I just saute them with butter and eat them straight from the pan.
Brilliant! So simple and can’t believe we’ve never thought of that. Duh! Usually we’ll make a garlic butter to dip into, but sauteing them up in butter is perfect! Thanks Kitt!