Artichoke Festival: Pork Stuffed Artichokes with Lemon Sauce

All good things must come to an end, and this is the finale for the Aroma Cucina Artichoke Festival. But we’re going out with a delicious bang: pork stuffed artichokes with a lemon sauce. It was the last of our big, globe artichokes and I think they were properly honored and devoured!

All good things must come to an end, and this is the finale for the Aroma Cucina Artichoke Festival.   But we’re going out with a delicious bang: pork stuffed artichokes with a lemon sauce. It was the last of our big, globe artichokes and I think they were properly honored and devoured!

The Stuffing:
A finely chopped soffrito: carrots, celery and spring onions
Ground pork
Garlic, thyme, rosemary

Lightly saute all the ingredients until the pork is barely done and the vegetables have softened.

The Artichoke:
Chose medium to large globe type artichokes.
Clean the choke of its tough outer leaves, but leave the artichoke whole.

Gently separate the leaves of the artichoke and force small bits of the stuffing between the leaves.
Place the artichokes in a deep pan and add enough chicken or vegetable broth to come  halfway up the artichoke.

Simmer the stuffed artichokes in the broth until tender. Ours took about 15 minutes to be falling apart tender.

The Lemon Sauce:
2 T Flour
2 T Butter
Juice of one fresh, large lemon
1 1/2 cups chicken broth

Over medium heat, melt the butter and fry the flour as you would for a bechamel sauce. Don’t let the flour brown, so keep stirring the whole time. Add the chicken broth and keep stirring until the sauce thickens. Add the lemon juice and stir again.

For serving:
In individual small bowls, fill the bottom of the bowl with the lemon sauce and top with the stuffed artichoke. Garnish with grated lemon zest.

As delicious as this dish is, I’m betting a fabulous variation would be to use ground lamb.

It’s been a great week of artichoke love and I can’t believe I couldn’t make all the dishes I wanted to make. I really wanted to try Elie’s grilled artichoke, but we ran out of time. Elie’s also making artichoke liquor, so check in our Facebook page to see how that turns out. I’m betting it will be delicious!

Now it’s time to move on to other good things to eat!

Next up: How does our garden grow?