Cardoons

[Carole B.]

A friend of my gave up her allotment last year and gave me a lot of her old seed packets including a packet of cardoons,12 have germinated and I shall grow them up the lottie as I believe they get big,but how do you eat them? I can vaguely remember Clarissa D.W. doing something with them but no details come to mind...any ideas anyone?
Carole.

[pigletwillie]

Hi Carole,

here is a recipe for cardoons, firstly you chop them up with a saw into managable lengths and place them in a large pot with 3 new, clean house bricks, some salt and pepper and a sprig of rosemary. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 5 hours. Drain off the water, put the cardoons on the compost heap and serve the bricks with champ or other vegetables of your choice.

My brother grew them a couple of years ago, I honestly didnt fancy eating giant thistles.

[Tigger]

Sometimes Piglet is right.

I grow cardoons in my garden as they're very architectural and look wonderful in a border. You would be better off growing their cousin the globe artichoke for eating.

[Carole B.]

Looks like they might be bound for an ornamental patch then,I once read a wild goose recipe that was a bit like that Pigletwillie!
Carole.

[Beccy]

In order to make them edible you have to blanch the stems, wrapping the whole of the plant up after it has grown.

I saw the programme with Clarissa DW on too and thought it sounded like an awful lot of hassle. But I would like to try it just the once to see, so let us know how you get on. The programme I saw was the Sophie Grigson Grow Your Greens / Eat Your Greens combo, the best growing then cooking programmes I've seen. There are three recipes in the book of the programme,
1 Basically stuffed Cardoons, stems blanched then sandwiched with a meat filling, egged and breadcrumbed then slowly fried.
2 A gratin with lemon, black truffle (!optional), black olives, white wine, and gruyere
3 With Bagna Cauda a dip made with anchovies, garlic, olive oil and butter.

I could type them up if you fancy, but I would recommend getting hold of the book itself if you can, it has some really fantastic recipes, Sophie Grigson, 'Eat Your Greens' Channel Four, 1993

[Chantal]

My sister once decided to cook a brace of pheasant that had been in the freezer for some time. I should have taken heed of the fact that they smelt so bad frozen that I insisted she defrosted them by leaving them in the garage. Gamey is what she called them but even the spaniels looked worried. She decided to do a casserole, got out the cook book and the veg and started cooking. The smell was so appalling that I shut the doors and sat in the front room with a tea towel tied over my nose and mouth. The stink was outrageous and how she survived without a gas mask I will never know. Anyway, a couple of reeking hours went by and she came in to me with a spoonful of clear liquid, looking all excited and said "try this, it's amazing". I still can't believe I opened my mouth and let her spoon feed me the stuff. I gagged, spat it out and was then sick. My darling sister said "yeah, it tastes like shit doesn't it"! The little mare had tried it herself, realised that it was utterly disgusting but didn't see why she should suffer alone. It turned out that they'd not been cleaned properly and didn't only taste of shit, they were full of shit and we'd eaten it. Ugh. Even the dogs wouldn't touch them and the smell was so bad we had to bury them 2ft under at the bottom of the garden. Sisters eh?

[pigletwillie]

The book's grand, as is Sophie Grigson BUT cardoons are still big thistles!

[Carole B.]

I think I shall put the cardoons in the ornamental bit but I will try blanching some(tied up like celery I presume) and experiment on the men-folk,that sounds bad,doesn't it....!
Carole.