How to Prepare and Cook Cardoons

A few Thanksgivings ago, I took my visiting Spanish teacher mom to see the Guggenheim exhibition Spanish Painting from El Greco to Picasso: Time Truth, and History.

We talked all afternoon about the bodegón (still life) featuring cardoons, an ingredient neither of us were familiar with, and that afternoon, I promised to serve my mom a tasty cardoon dish for the holidays.

To add fuel to my fire, a recipe in the Babbo cookbook had been taunting me with its hazy promises of mixing the mellow cardoon with sharp red onion rounds and piquant preserved lemon slices.

It sounded damn near irresistible. But where was a cardoon to be found in the greater New York/New Jersey area?

Invisible at the greenmarkets, nowhere to be found in the exotic produce section of the supermarket, I was about to admit defeat after coming up short for the second straight year.

But no! The ever-resourceful Martina at Gustiamo came through for me.

She gave me the tip: cardoons are often hidden in plain sight along the back wall at Manhattan Fruit Exchange in Chelsea Market. And it was so.

After explaining what exactly a cardoon is and what I was planning to accomplish with it to the Exchange’s confused patrons and stockboys, I headed off with my quarry.

What are cardoons and how can you cook them?

Cardoons, though they resemble exuberantly leafy celery, are actually cousins to the artichoke within the edible thistle family, and share the ‘choke’s somewhat challenging prep and cooking time.

You can use them anywhere you’d use artichoke hearts in a recipe–tossing them with pasta or grains, or baking in a gratin or casserole with chicken, for example.

How do you prepare cardoons?

All the cardoon recipes I researched instructed me to remove the leaves and peel off the tough outer ribs of the cardoon before slicing.

My antique vegetable peeler was not quite up for the task, but a paring knife worked well.

I held the knife perpendicular to the stem and brushed it quickly down its surface, letting the stringy strands pile up at the end of the stalk.

Once all the cardoons were peeled, I sliced them into bite-size pieces, one stalk at a time, transferring the pieces to a bowl of lemon water to prevent browning as I worked.

I then dumped the pieces and the halved lemon into boiling water and simmered until crisp-tender, about 15 to 20 minutes.

It’s just like cooking an artichoke, although you won’t have to worry about the cardoon pieces popping up above your simmering water.

I drained the cardoon pieces and cooled them in an ice bath to stop the cooking process. (This is called blanching, FYI.)

At this point, the cardoons could be frozen in a single layer on a baking sheet and saved for another use, or added to a recipe as is.

You could simplify it and serve the cardoons with just a drizzle of good olive oil and a sprinkle of flaky salt, but I went the whole nine yards and used the Babbo recipe for my Thanksgiving guests.

How could I not, after so many years?

Cardoons with Preserved Lemon and Onions

Yield: 6 servings

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Cardoons are part of the artichoke family, even though they look like long celery stalks. Here's a flavorful side dish you can make with this vegetable.

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Ingredients

• 1 large bunch of cardoons
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 preserved lemon quarters, thinly sliced
• 1 small red onion, thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup dry white wine
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

To prep the cardoons:

1. Fill a large bowl with water and squeeze the juice from half a lemon into the water. Throw the lemon half into the water too - it can't hurt.
2. One stalk at a time, peel the cardoons by running the sharp edge of a paring knife along the thick outer ridges of each stalk. Scrape off the leaves and thin silver layer of skin and discard.
3. Slice each peeled stalk into bite-size pieces and transfer to the bowl of lemon water to prevent browning.
4. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and squeeze the remaining lemon half into the water.
5. Drain the cardoons and add to the boiling water.
6. Simmer for 15-20 minutes, until the cardoon pieces are crisp-tender.
7. Fill a large bowl with ice water.
8. Drain the cardoons and transfer to the ice bath.
9. Allow to cool to room temperature, then drain.

To finish the dish:

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.
2. Add the preserved lemons and onion slices.
3. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onions have softened.
4. Add the reserved cardoons, wine, vinegar, honey, red pepper, salt, and black pepper.
5. Cook for 8-10 minutes more, until the cardoons have absorbed most of the liquid.
6. Serve as a side dish or over a grain, such as brown rice.

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 6 Serving Size: 1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 75Total Fat: 5gSaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 4gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 195mgCarbohydrates: 7gFiber: 1gSugar: 5gProtein: 0g

The nutritional information above is computer-generated and only an estimate.

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