Cooking For Engineers

[Guest]

Your site is wonderful. My late husband was an engineer and he grew up in artichoke country in California. He would think your site was a hoot! Thanks for making me think of him and sharing a chuckle.

[Al Lim]

Aloha Michael Chu,
Excellent website and instructions on grilling artichokes. Our fave restaurant, The Rutherford Grill in California Wine country does a great job w/ these and we've been meaning replicate their efforts. The pictures, instructions, and anatomy lesson were excellent. My wife is a mechanical engineer and loved your site. We use mayo w/ a little soy sauce as our EZ dipping sauce. Keep up the excellent work and we'll be visiting your site often.
Mahalo,
Al Lim

[Guest]

My husband and I just ate the Grilled Artichokes at the Rutherford Grill (near Napa, Ca) today for lunch. We decided to try it at home. Since they grill their's over a wood fire grill, we wanted the smokey flavor but have a gas BBQ. I added Mesquite Liquid Smoke to the water before steaming. I also added some to the Olive Oil that we basted the artichokes with, and lightly sprinkled Lawry's seasoning salt on them before grilling. They were every bit as good at Rutherford's. Now if I could come up with their dipping sauce, I'd have it made and impress everyone!O

[jimmyjimbob]

I suggest adding some info on how to make some different merinades. We like ours with: buter,ground garlic (not garlic salt), fresh cerlatro, EVOO, fresh group pepper, soy, sea salt, onion powder, fresh lime (1) and lemmon (.5) juice. and one spoon of mayo. Great for dipping and merinade durring the grilling process.

[guest]

It's funny that another person mentioned Rutherford's Grill in Napa Valley. We had their Grilled Artichokes there a month ago and tried to mimick the recipe here tonight. We'll have to try the artichoke recipe in this post (thank you very much!). The Rutherford Grill dipping sauce is easy - it's equal parts of mayonaisse, creamy horseradish and ground mustard.

[notyourusualsuspect]

Your instructions were perfect! I bought two today for 88 cents each. I love the taste but am always reluctant to cook them myself. Thank you for posting pictures that show exactly what the choke looks like. Every other article I looked at said to discard or scrape out the choke but only gave word descriptions. I am sending this site to other friends that have had the same question I did. Thank you!

[artichoke season]

your instructions and photos were very helpful. I've steamed artichokes before but never grilled em. they turned out perfect

[GINI]

ANOTHER DIPPING SAUCE IS MADE WITH 1 PART MAYO, 1/4 PART KETCHUP AND 1 TSP. CURRY POWDER. ENJOY!

[Ridem]

Artichokes were always a mystery to me. Thanks for the step-by-step hand-holding. Very informative-and the final outcome was delicious!!

(I used a olive oil,lemon juice,garlic,fresh oregano and balsamic vinegar marinade on the steamed artichokes prior to grilling.)

[Jenee]

I'm not big into using recipes, but I was interested in trying Grilled Artichokes and thought I'd check a recipe for some tips. All I have to say is BEST I have ever tasted! These are so tasty off the grill that they need no condiments or additional seasoning. I am now making these for the second time. I'll never eat another steamed artichoke again.

[aspen cool]

This recipe for grilled artichokes is definilty a keeper. I've been making steamed artichokes for many years, but until I had one grilled at a restaurant in Houston I never dreamed I'd get hooked. I now make them at home often, and when we go to Houston, I return to Houstons (the restaurant) and enjoy them there as well.

[Elisabeth]

HI,

Love artichoke. Eat them any which way I can. simple dipping sauce, garlic pressed or finely chopped, lemon juice or balsamic vinegar and olive oil, salt to taste.
You can wrap the artichokes in aluminum foil and drizzle them with oil etc. and then put them standing up on the grill or in hot oven about 20 minutes.
You can cut them in half and in water microwave them covered for about 10 minutes on high, until fork pressed into base comes out tender feeling.

Enjoy.

[Guest]

We just got back from Napa Valley and had the artichokes at Rutherford's Grill as well. Funny that someone mentioned Houston. My wife ate there as well and apparently they are owned by the same company/person.

In any event, I tried to replicate the process on my gas grill and discovered a few things. First, we cut the artichokes prior to steaming them. Bad idea. Second, we steamed the artichokes for 1 hour. Also not a good idea. The result was 1/2 the leaves falling off and through the grill. And the smoke flavor wasn't there.

Now that I have read your recipe and saw some of the posts, I try it again. BTW, I'm also trying to duplicate their corn bread recipe as well, but that has proven to be a little harder to find!

[geojock]

Unless you have your own artichoke plant you won't be able to harvest any seeds from the 'chokes - they're basically the flower "bud" BEFORE it's gone to seed. If you live in a fairly temperate climate, look around for artichoke plants as they are often used as landscaping. They actually have a beautiful purple flower. After the flower's wilted, you may be able to collect the seed from it, though I don't know what it would look like. I've got 4 'chokes in my garden and I eat every single flower bud!

[Guest]

Thanks for the great instructions!

For anyone interested in growing artichokes - it is very easy to do.

We've been growing 3 artichoke plants in our front yard since Spring, and they've been incredibly easy to grow. We bought them small from a nursery & they're been very low maintenance. The plants look very cool aesthetically too!

Each plant has so far yielded 1-2 large ("crown"?) artichokes, and 10-15 smaller artichokes of various sizes. We've already eaten the large ones, but we're now letting the smaller ones continue to grow to see how large they'll get (but not letting them get to flower).

We're harvesting a few different sizes today & will try out your grilling instructions tonight. Thanks for the tips on how to eat different sizes!

PS - For a dip we've always used: 1 tsp mayo, 1/2 tsp lemon juice, and 2 dashes of Lemon Pepper... sometimes also a dash of cayenne pepper for zest.