How to Cook Stuffed Artichokes

How to Cook Stuffed Artichokes is an easy, comforting dish of stuffed artichoke bottoms. This version includes fava beans, but if you prefer peas, you can easily swap them with Stuffed bottoms recipe cooked with peas.

Here’s what the frozen (canned, or jarred) artichoke bottoms look like. Notice their natural cup-shape. A bit of the outer ring is sliced off to rid of scale-like pieces.

Ingredients for Cook Stuffed Artichokes

• Whole frozen artichoke bottoms (not hearts, which are sold as small artichoke bottoms with its surrounding soft and edible attached leaves that are sliced into halves)
• Ground beef
• Fava beans, liquid and seasoning in the pot

Whole Artichoke bottoms

First, it’s important to note that you need artichoke bottoms that have not been sliced.

How to Cook Stuffed Artichokes – Why use Bottoms

Frozen artichoke bottoms don’t tend to fall apart in long-cooking recipes, as this recipe.

Note: Frozen Artichokes versus the canned or jarred kind, are the closest to their raw equivalents as far as texture and fragrance go.

What goes into the ground beef mixture?

• You can sub the beef with ground turkey, chicken. or lamb.
• Freshly chopped parsley leaves – Parsley has a mild aroma that helps balance the flavors in the recipe. You can sub the parsley with cilantro leaves (if this herb is not new to you).
• Lemon Juice –
• Large white onions – At least 2 onions, coarsely grated above a fine mesh sieve above a bowl. Squeeze
• Garlic cloves – Fresh garlic. Powdered or granulated is okay if your guests are not fussy.
• Neutral Oil – Oil is added directly into the meat mixture and is added to the pot for sautéing the onions.
• Binding Agents:
  • Raw eggs –
  • A coarsely grated potato – The starch also binds the meat and adds a bit of a bounce.
• Seasoning: Turmeric, Cumin powder, Kosher salt, and Black pepper

Green Fava Beans and Liquid in Pot

• The recipe calls for frozen fava beans, but you can use canned, or jarred beans.
• Liquid:
  • Water, chicken stock, or chicken broth (adjust saltiness). The water should not rise above the top of the artichoke bottoms.

Instructions for Stuffed Artichoke Bottoms with Fava Beans

1. Mix the squeezed shredded onion with the ground beef, herbs, and spices.
2. In a large pot, sauté an onion or add boiling water with spices, then add the fava beans and bring to a simmer.
3. Press a meat mixture firmly into each artichoke bottom and place in the pot among the beans. Halve four artichoke bottoms and add them to the sauce as well.

Pairing Options

What to Pair with Stuffed large artichoke bottoms

• Rice: Mildly Sweet Mushroom White Rice recipe; White Rith Green Peas recipe
• Mashed potatoes
• Fresh salad: Salad with Dried Cranberries and Fresh Herbs (green too, with red cranberry jewels)
• Cooked salads, as these sour-mushroom-artichoke bottoms

Interesting Facts – What is an artichoke Head?

Artichoke heads are actually flower buds cut off of the artichoke plant, which is grown specifically for these flowers. So, artichoke heads are not botanically a vegetable, but they are prepared as though they were.

Here is a cross-section of a large raw artichoke head. In front of it is a raw whole artichoke bottom. This is what the bottom looks like inside an artichoke head.

Turkey?

I’ve been preparing stuffed artichoke recipes for years, passwd down to me by my late mother-in-law. My mother-in-law used to stuff artichoke bottoms with ground red turkey. I do so as well from time to time, all depending on what I have in my freezer.

So, feel free to sub the beef in this recipe with turkey. Refer to the link beneath this image.

Health Benefits – Contribution of Fava Beans to Health Risk Prevention

According to Healthline, there might be great benefits of fava beans.

Fava beans might help:

• with Parkinson symptoms
• prevent birth defects
• boost antioxidant activity in the human cells
• promote bone strength
• may increase blood iron levels
• …The list goes on.

The possible health benefits of fava beans according to Healthline.

Read up on frozen artichoke bottoms.

Feel free to leave a comment or question below.

Enjoy!