Grilled Artichokes

The high, dry heat of the grill brings out a vegetable’s natural sweetness. Conventional wisdom holds that the best vegetables for grilling have a high water content, such as peppers, onions, mushrooms, zucchini, and corn. Firm, dense, low-moisture vegetables make less likely candidates. When was the last time you were offered a grilled beet or rutabaga at a barbecue? But every rule has its exception: In this case it’s an edible flower you would think would be leathery and tough when grilled—the artichoke. This recipe came to me from Cagliari, Sardinia. You’ll love the crackling crisp leaves and haunting smoke flavor, not to mention licking the garlic oil off your fingers as you pull the grilled artichoke apart with your hands.

Grilled Artichokes

Steven Raichlen

Direct Grilling

➽TIP: Selecting artichokes for grilling may run counter to your intuition: The best ones are older chokes whose leaves have started to spread open. This allows the oil—and the heat—to penetrate deep into the artichokes, giving the leaves their signature crispness. Avoid hard, tightly closed globe artichokes, which may taste great boiled or steamed, but are difficult to grill. The other ingredient you need is patience.

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Course Side Dish

Cuisine American

Servings 4 -8 servings

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• 8 artichokes
• 1 lemon, cut in half
• 1-1/2 to 2 cups extra virgin olive oil
• Coarse salt (kosher or sea) and freshly ground black pepper
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tablespoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

Instructions

 

• Using a sharp knife, cut off and discard the top third of each artichoke. Then cut off the stems flush with the bottoms and discard. Using kitchen shears, cut the spiny tips off the artichoke leaves and rub all the cut edges with lemon. Using a grapefruit spoon or melon baller, scrape out the purplish inside leaves and “choke” (fibrous part) of each artichoke, creating a hollow cavity in the center. Squeeze lemon juice into this cavity. Generously brush the artichokes inside and out with some of the olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Notes

Recipe reprinted with permission from Beer-Can Chicken by Steven Raichlen (Workman Publishing, 2024). 

Keyword artichokes, Beer-Can Chicken, Black pepper, Garlic, Lemon, Olive oil, Parsley, Salt, spring, Steven Raichlen, Summer