Roasted Root Veggies & Steamed Artichokes

I have a confession to make. Artichokes are beginning to win me over. I’ve liked the marinated ones for years, but I never could understand what all the fuss was about with the fresh ones. They seemed like too much of a hassle for the little bit of food that you got. The jury is still out, but I’m coming around. At least I’ve reached the stage where they don’t intimidate me any more.

You’re going to need a rimmed baking dish for the root veggies and some way to steam the artichokes. You also need a bowl of water with a lemon squeezed in it for the artichokes to hang out in for a few minutes to help forestall the oxidation that turns the artichokes brown. Brown artichokes aren’t the end of the world, but green ones just look better.

Select artichokes that have tight leaves and no dark spots. Select root veggies that are on the small side and that are firm to the touch. You don’t want to buy a beet that feels like a ripe plum.

If your store or farmers market has baby beets or carrots you probably don’t need to peel those and they’ll probably cook a little quicker.

For prep, I’d suggest trimming and peeling the root veggies ahead of time, but since this week is recorded you can pause it when you need to.

Enjoy!

Next week we’re going to make FAT HEAD BAGELS!

Kitchen Essentials

Here’s a list of some of the essential items you are going to need for this recipe as well as other items that I very highly recommend.

For this recipe:

Other highly recommended items:

Cookware:

Food thermometers:

Chef’s knives:
- Wusthof Classic 8-Inch Chef’s Knife
- Victorinox Fibrox Pro Chef’s Knife

Cutting boards:
- Teak Cutting Board – Rectangle Board With Hand Grip And Juice Canal (larger)
- Teak Cutting Board – Rectangle Edge Grain Board With Corner Hole And Juice Canal (smaller)

Mineral oil for cutting boards:
- Food Grade Mineral Oil for Cutting Boards, Countertops and Butcher Blocks

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Roasted Root Veggies & Steamed Artichokes

AuthorJim Brown

Root veggies are great for a batch cook and worth firing up the oven and I'm getting converted to an artichoke fan. Especially if it comes with a side of aioli.

Kitchen Essentials

You're going to need a rimmed baking dish for the root veggies and some way to steam the artichokes. You also need a bowl of water with a lemon squeezed in it for the artichokes to hang out in for a few minutes to help forestall the oxidation that turns the artichokes brown.

Prep

For prep, I'd suggest trimming and peeling the root veggies ahead of time.

Ingredients

1 Bunch Red Beets - Trimmed, Peeled and Sliced 1/2"

1 Bunch Yellow Beets - Trimmed, Peeled and Sliced 1/2"

1 Bunch Parsnips - Trimmed, Peeled and Sliced 1/2"

1 Bunch Young Carrots - Trimmed, Peeled and Halved

4 Shallots- Trimmed and Halved

4 -6 Fingerling Potatoes - Sliced 1/2"

1 Artichoke Per Person

1 Egg

½ cup EVOO

½ cup Avocado Oil

1 tsp Dijon Mustard

1 Lemon - Juiced

1 pinch Salt

1 Clove Garlic - Raw or Toasted

Look for root veggies that are firm to the touch and on the smaller side. Feel free to choose different veggies. Rutabagas, turnips, fennel, radishes - they all work.

If you find baby root veggies you won't need to peel them, just give them a good scrub with a veggie brush, and them trim off the tops and the root stem.

I said to cut the veggies into 1/2 inch thickness, but if they're small enough you can halve or quarter them. The main thing we're after is similar thickness so that everything cooks at the same pace. If you put a small piece of garlic on the tray, it's going to be burned to a crisp before the other items are done.

Once your veggies are peeled and trimmed, toss them with olive oil and a little salt and spread them out on a rimmed baking sheet and put them in a 400 degree oven.

Start checking on them around the 25-30 minute mark, but odds are good that it will take 40-45 minutes for them to get perfectly done. You want them to give a little when you press on them with your finger.

Artichokes don't have to be intimidating. I have to admit, their allure was lost on me for a while. I liked the marinated ones, but never understood the attraction of the fresh ones. I'm slowly becoming a convert.

In the video where I roasted the veggies, I roasted the artichokes and I realized too late that roasting them had made them pretty tough.

I later shot the video where I steamed them and I liked the results a lot better. You could also steam them for 15-20 minutes and then roast them, or finish them on a grill.

I haven't cooked them in an InstantPot yet, but have been told that it's a perfect way to cook them.

Select artichokes with tight leaves and absent any dark spots. Give them a good wash and get a steamer set up ready to go - i.e. get the water boiling, while we trim the artichokes.

We're just going to cut the top off of the artichoke, cut the bottom 1/2" off of the stem and them peel the skin off of the stem with a vegetable peeler. We're also going to snap off the bottom 2 rows of leaves.

We're going to cut the artichokes in half and them put them in a large bowl of water that we've squeezed a lemon's worth of lemon juice in. This is to slow down the oxidation process that causes the artichokes to turn brown.

When the steamer is steaming we're going to add the artichokes to the steamer basket and stem them until the stems can be easily pierced with a fork. Probably 30-45 minutes.

When they're done you're going to cut out the choke with a paring knife and remove the purple leaves.

You can do this step prior to cooking them, but doing so after they're done seems to be the easier way to go.

While the artichokes are steaming we'll make the aioli.

I like using an immersion blender for this because it's super easy. Use the blender cup that comes with the immersion blender and crack an egg into the cup, add 1/2 cup EVOO, 1/2 cup avocado oil, tsp of mustard, pinch of salt, juice of a lemon and the peeled and rough chopped garlic and then blend until it looks like aioli.