Simple yet delicious artichoke stir-fry
This artichoke stir-fry is a simple way to add more vegetables to your diet.
You can cook artichokes in several ways, they are a “super vegetable” rich in lot of nutrients. An artichoke stir-fry is also great to make a frittata, and you can blend it with some milk or single cream to make a nice artichoke cream to make pasta.
Artichokes comes from the Middle East, they were already used in Egypt thousands of year ago. In fact, many of the classic Italian recipes that use artichokes were brought to Italy by the Jewish community. In Rome, the best place to eat artichokes is the Jewish Ghetto.
Artichokes: health facts
A good source of vitamins, iron, magnesium and dietary fibers, artichokes can be eaten either raw or cooked and are a great ally for our liver and digestive health.
Eating artichokes is a very good way of adding fiber to the daily diet. You can use them in a lot of recipes and a good way to prepare it is in a simple stir-fry that you can keep handy for busy weekdays when you don’t feel like spending a lot of time cooking.
Artichoke stir-fry: meal prep tips
If you buy artichokes in batch you can clean and cook them on Sunday and have it ready-to-use all week long.
There are other ways you can use this artichoke stir-fry. For a light mid-week dinner you can add it to frittata, or make pasta with it, use to stuff pizza or in a sandwich. You can also make a spread by blending it with olive oil.
Here are some ideas:
- Quick artichoke risotto To make a quick artichoke risotto you can add the stir-fried artichokes to a pot. Turn the heat on medium then add the risotto and cook it by adding a ladle of broth at a time, until the risotto is cooked. Wait until the broth has been absorbed by the rice before adding it again. When it’s cooked, add a knob of butter and some parmigiano. Mix vigorously and garnish with parsley.
- Pasta with artichoke cream: blend the stir-fried artichokes with some milk to make a creamy. Boil the pasta and season with the sauce.
- Artichoke quiche: check my recipe for artichokes quiche.
- Artichoke spread: blend the artichokes with extra virgin olive oil, pepper and parmigiano until creamy. This is also the vegan version of the artichoke cream for your pasta.
How to store artichoke stir-fry
You can follow this recipe and keep the stir-fry in an air-tight container up to a week in the fridge. You can also freeze it. The cream and the spread also keeps for some days and are perfect for freezing. You can freeze both in ziplock bag, flatten to a few millimeters thick. This way you will be able to thaw the cream in a few minutes in a pan.
You can freeze the cooked artichokes, they’ll keep in the freezer for several months, it’s best to vacuum packed them when freezing.
Artichokes stir-fry: Tips
You can cook this artichokes either in a slow cooker or a pressure cooker.
Slow cooker: add all the ingredients to the slow cooker and cook on low for about 2/3h.
Pressure cooker: you can follow step 1 and two then add the remaining and cook for 5/8minutes.
Simple yet delicious artichoke stir-fry
Ingredients
- 4 cleaned and washed artichokes
- 1 or 2 cloves of garlic
- a bunch of parsley or lesser calamint know in Italy as mentuccia romana - roman mint
- extra virgin olive oil
- salt pepper
- cayenne pepper optional
Instructions
- Cut the artichokes lengthwise in slices
- Heat the pan and pour oil garlic and cayenne pepper, leave it on low for a couple of minutes to infuse the oil with the garlic and cayenne flavor and avoiding overheating
- Add the artichokes, salt and pepper, and 1/4 cup of water or stock
- Cover with a lid and cook on low for 15 to 20min to get a very soft result. If you prefer the artichokes to be on the crispier side, cook on medium without the lid for up to 15minutes depending on the size of the slices and how tender the artichokes are
- Serve with mint or parsley.
