Stuffed Artichoke Bottoms

Looking for a fresh twist on a Mediterranean-Middle Eastern favorite? These stuffed artichoke bottoms with green peas are simple, satisfying, and full of flavor—perfect for first-timers or seasoned cooks looking to elevate their recipe.

First, if you’re accustomed to making homemade meatballs, or chicken balls for that matter, then this should especially be a no brainer for you.

You just mix ground beef (or ground chicken, if you prefer) with a few spices, and some binding ingredients (like some egg), mold large round balls and plop them on top of frozen artichoke bottoms.

You can find frozen bottoms at Mediterranean or Middle Eastern stores, or in different areas of the world, at a local supermarket.

Canned bottoms might work, but they come completely pre-cooked and risk falling apart if they cook for too long; meaning, longer than the meat is edible.

Canned bottoms also need to be pre-soaked in water to get rid of the brine in which they were immersed as a preservative.

As far as using raw artichokes bottoms, I’d say definitely not, unless you are an experienced at hollowing fresh raw artichokes. The process could be time consuming, inconvenient and messy. Follow the link if you’re curious about raw artichokes.

Ingredients of This Stuffed Artichoke Bottoms Dish

Whole Artichoke bottoms: Frozen, canned, or jarred bottoms.

Behind the scenes

The Ground Beef Mixture

• Seasoning: Onion, garlic, celery stalk and leaves, Kosher salt, black pepper, lemon juice, and Turmeric. The seasoning is for the meat mixture and the sauce itself.
• Oil: Neutral oil – Add a bit of oil directly into the meat mixture to help prevent a hard meatball stuffing. Oil is also used to pre-saute some chopped onion in, before adding the stuffed artichokes.
• Raw Eggs – The eggs bind the meat together while their protein coagulates. Liquid gets trapped inside, making the meat juicy.
• A Coarsely Grated Potato – The recipe calls for a potato’s starchiness instead of bread crumbs.
• Liquid: Water and lemon juice (or meat/vegetable broth).
• Baking Powder: Just a bit. Optional. Some cooks automatically add baking powder (or soda with an acidic agent, which would be the lemon juice) to break up the proteins a bit. It is mixed with the meat and set aside for a while to soften the meat. But you can just skip this stage and leave out the baking powder.

the Sauce –

• Frozen Green Peas: Green peas provide a burst of charm, as well as a smoothie, yet chewy texture. It also bumps up the dish’s nutritional value.
• Celery stalks + leaves: Celery has an exceptional aromatic sweet and herbaceous scent and flavor.
• Freshly chopped parsley leaves:
• Liquid for the Sauce: Water and lemon juice or chicken stock/broth. Adjust saltiness.
• Curry powder, or Dry Turmeric: Add one of these spices for Mediterranean or Middle Eastern flavors, to really be able to experience the way the dish is most commonly presented. Sprinkle the spice on, or brush on top of the meat and add some to the sauce itself.
• Fresh garlic cloves

Substitutes, Variations, and Tips for Stuffed Artichoke Bottoms

Artichoke Bottoms –

You’ll need to decide on what type of artichoke bottoms you’re going to use when preparing for the recipe.

• Canned Bottoms:
  • Canned bottoms are completely cooked.
  • Rinse (or soak) them very well in water before cooking them to rid them of their acidity.
  • Adjust the amount of lemon juice called for in the recipe.
  • Make sure not to over-cook them after they are cooked stuffed.
• Jarred Bottoms:
  • Jarred bottoms are completely cooked.
  • Rinse well of saltiness before use.
  • Adjust saltiness in the recipe.
  • Make sure not to over-cook them after they are cooked stuffed.
• Frozen Bottoms:
  • We always try to use ingredients that are the closest to those that are fresh one.
  • Carving just one raw artichoke bottom out of an artichoke flower head (yes, an artichoke is a flower) is not easy and is time consuming.
  • Frozen artichoke bottoms are parboiled and flash-frozen and not preserved in any kind of a liquid.
  • This helps them retain their freshness as far as flavor and texture goes.

Turmeric Substitution and Sauce Variation –

• Paprika (smoked or sweet). The dish will end up with a red and not yellow tint.
• Add some tomato paste. Adjust saltiness and lemon juice. Add natural date syrup to balance bitter flavor in tomato paste if you use the kind that is natural (sugar-free).

Oil Substitutes –

• Use any kind of oil you prefer as long as you know its aroma and flavor and how it will affect the overall flavor of the dish. This includes coconut oil and even mild-frangrance olive oil
• I use (extra-virgin, cold-pressed) olive oil for as many fresh salads as possible.
• Here’s a spicy chopped tomato-chili salad to add spice to your meal, but don’t hesitate to just remove the chili pepper and make it a mild fresh salad.

Baking Powder –

You can add baking powder to the meat mixture. When the meat protein bonds together from the heat, the result is a smoother texture. The result is a bit of a bouncy meatball, like the one you see in the image below. Its bounciness reminds me of the bounciness of Kebab.

• If that’s your preferred texture, then by all means, add 1 teaspoon of baking powder to the raw beef and set it aside for up to 20 minutes. Then add 3 tablespoons of lemon juice.
• Or you can forget about the baking powder altogether.
• Or instead of setting aside for 20 minutes, don’t set it aside at all. Add the baking powder last, mold the meatballs and stuff on the artichoke bottoms and toss into the simmering sauce.

Instructions

Do I have to carve out vegetable flesh to stuff the Artichoke Base?

No, you don’t! An artichoke bottom has the natural shape of a cup. So, ‘Yay, no carving’!

Baby Artichoke Hearts Versus Large artichoke bottoms

Baby artichoke are not for recipes like these. There are too small and frail. And they are sold in halves anyway, so they can’t hold a meatball.

If it has leaves attached, it’s called a heart, simply because it looks like a heart. Makes sense, right?

If they are sold without attached leaves, then they are called bottoms.

Facts:

These hearts are the inside of underdeveloped artichoke flowers. They grow at the bottom of the plant and don’t get enough light so they develop more slowly.

They are called Baby artichokes but know that they grow on the same plant as the large flower heads. If they were left on for much longer and not cut off the plant the same time that the larger flower heads were cut off (those higher up on the plant)

Step 1 –

The Artichoke Bottoms/Bases + Defrosting The Peas

• Frozen bottoms: Boil frozen bottoms for a few minutes in lemony water. Place on paper towels or on a rack to cool a bit and drain of water.

For canned or jarred bottoms: Rinse to rid of an acidic tang or saltiness.

• Frozen peas: Defrost in a bowl of boiling water, or leave out on the counter top. Drain in a colander.

Step 2 –

Ground Beef Mixture

• Mix the spices and herbs with the raw ground beef. Set aside.
• Let’s move on to the sauce.

Step 3 –

The Sauce

• Sauté the onions in a thick, large non-stick sautéing pot.
• Add defrosted peas, dry spices, herb, celery, and lemon juice.

Step 4 –

Stuff the bottoms and Place them into the sauce

• Mold meatballs and firmly press them into the artichoke bottoms.
• Simmer in the sauce until soft yet not mushy-falling apart.

Tips:

• There’s no need to make the beef overlap the sides of the artichoke bottoms. They will remain in tact and won’t float all over the place.
• Just make sure to add water that reaches the top of the artichoke bottoms.
• It’s okay to have the water reach the meat on the top, just try not to have it much higher.
• You can add more water if you feel the need to do so for whatever reason, when the meat seems a bit cooked on the outside. By this time, they probably won’t float off the bottoms.

What to Pair with Artichoke Meatballs

• 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)
• Sour-Mushroom Cooked with Artichoke Bottoms

Here is a similar recipe is you prefer to serve the stuffed bottoms with fava beans: Stuffed Artichoke Bottoms With Fava Beans instead of peas. This has more of a Middle-Eastern style.

I hope you enjoy making Mediterranean dishes as these stuffed artichoke hearts/bottoms.

For more information, read up on frozen artichoke bottoms.

Thank You, Grandma Chana!

This is a decades old recipe!

I don’t want to take up your time, or focus, off the recipe, but I do have to show gratitude to my late beloved mother-in-law, Chana, for having the patience to teach me this recipe and the basics of Mediterranean, Middle-Eastern, and Central and Easter European dishes.

With only love and respect for my special father, and mother (who I pray to G-d regains her health), Chana, in many ways, and not without reason, was like a mother to me.

If we don’t take the time to show genuine gratitude towards others for even the tiniest things they have done for us, what would the world look like? What would we look like? What would I look like?

Here’s another stuffed bottoms dish. It’s a Turkey-Stuffed Artichoke dish, almost identical to Chana’s recipe.

Feel free to leave a question or comment in the comments section below.

Enjoy!

S