Grilled Artichokes and Sausage
Artichoke season is in full bloom and they are producing some very large artichokes. I have always wanted to try different ways of preparing these beauties, and grilling just made perfect sense. Adding some sausage, turkey kielbasa to be specific, made even more sense.
Grilling artichokes is a very simple processes and eliminates boiling them to death. When artichokes are boiled they loose allot of flavor, that's why we come up with all sorts of dips for them. We have made a mayonnaise, lemon and catsup dip since I was a kid. I thought this was the only way to do it. Boil to death , dip it in a sweet sauce that wasn't healthy at all, then suffer through all of the gas explosions that would kept the family separated for hours.
The best artichokes have a little browning on the leaves, this is from the proper amount of freeze. They should have the leaves closed in tight, not opened. You can learn even more here: California artichoke Advisory. Lets start with the big dog. First things first, you need to wash this artichokes! They are full of dirt and sand, hold them under the faucet for a couple of minutes to rinse them out.
Now we need to do some trimming. Cut the stem down a bit, you won't be eating all of it, the longer it is the tougher it gets. Trim the thorns of of the leaves if you like, I don't have the patience for this, so be careful of getting poked. You can trim the bottom flat to get the last of the stickers also.
Now take a large butchers knife and split the artichoke right down the middle. this will expose the inside pith. Go ahead and core that out, right down the the main part of the artichoke. I used an ice cream scoop.
You shouldn't grill the artichoke 100% on the grill, it would be very dry if you do. I boiled mine in some salted water for about 20 minutes. This gets the artichoke soft for the final grilling. Let them cool a bit then coat them with some olive oil to prevent them from burning on the grill.
I decided to whip up a little garlic and herb baste for the grilling. Nothing fancy, I just minced up some garlic and olive oil, added some parsley, lemon pepper and salt. It wasn't more than a toss of this and a toss of that. Very measured to be sure, then pour this on the open side of your artichoke.
Preheat your grill to 350° – 400°. If you can two stage your cooking area, then do that with the artichokes at the low side. Cook the artichokes for about 5 minutes on each side, the sausage cooks for just a bit longer to your personal taste.
That artichoke was so big that I could barely get to the sausage! No sauce was needed for dipping it was just right as it was. Slightly smokey and nutty with a hint of garlic and seasoning. I of course dipped my sausage into some mustard, to bad I only had yellow mustard on hand. A spicy brown would have been great, washed down with a chilled dark beer.
Give grilled artichokes a try, I am sure you'll agree, these are the best.
