Читать книгу Made in Italy: Food and Stories - Giorgio Locatelli - Страница 34

The combination of marinated and raw artichokes gives a fantastic contrast of flavour and texture in this salad. If you like, you can add some split chillies (with or without seeds, depending on how chilli-hot you like them) to the marinade to give it an extra kick. The boys in the kitchen always do this for my wife Plaxy because it is her favourite way of eating artichokes. In winter, when you don’t have any fresh artichokes, you can make the salad with ones that have been kept under oil.

Sometimes, if you are lucky, you can find really tiny artichokes, the size of a golf ball. When we get these in the kitchen, we leave them whole and just trim the tops, remove the outer leaves and clean what there is of the stalk. You don’t need to worry about the choke, because there will be nothing there. We blanch them as described in the recipe below, then brush them with olive oil and chargrill them on a hot griddle until they are well marked, to give them a roasted flavour, before marinating them.

10 baby artichokes

200ml white wine

200ml white wine vinegar

juice of ½ lemon

a little olive oil

a good wedge of Parmesan

2 tablespoons Shallot vinaigrette (see page 52)

4 handfuls of mixed green salad

2 tablespoons Giorgio’s vinaigrette (see page 51)

small bunch of chives, cut into batons

salt and pepper

For the marinade:

500ml extra-virgin olive oil

2 black peppercorns

2 juniper berries

2 bay leaves

5 sage leaves

sprig of rosemary

2 garlic cloves, lightly crushed

100ml white wine vinegar

Prepare the artichokes and cut in half as described on page 70, and keep 2 of them to one side. Blanch the remaining artichokes in a mixture of the white wine, white wine vinegar, 200ml water and 2 teaspoons of salt for 3-4 minutes. They should still be quite firm. Drain and leave to cool.

To make the marinade, pour the olive oil into a pan and add all the remaining marinade ingredients except the vinegar. Place over a medium heat (the oil shouldn’t be too hot – just enough to cook the herbs gently). As soon as the herbs start to fry and the garlic starts to turn lightly golden, turn down the heat and stir in the vinegar.

Cut the blanched artichoke halves in half again and put them into the pan. Bring back to the boil, turn off the heat and cool completely.

Slice the 2 reserved artichokes, toss with the lemon juice and a little olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. Keep to one side. Grate about 2 tablespoons of Parmesan and set this aside, too.

Spoon the blanched artichokes from their pan (you can save the marinade for next time). Dress with Shallot vinaigrette and arrange on 4 serving plates.

Season the mixed green salad, toss with the grated Parmesan and Giorgio’s vinaigrette, and arrange it on top of the artichokes. Sprinkle the raw artichokes over the top. Shave the rest of the Parmesan and sprinkle that and the chives over the salad to serve.