Cardoons are a vegetable with a taste similar to artichoke and look like celery. They are typically winter vegetables and should be purchased nice and white, fleshy, and free of spots indicating they have been sitting on the shelves for a while. The most tedious part is cleaning them because they may have small thorns on the sides and need to have the fibers removed just like cleaning celery. For cooking, they can be prepared stewed or baked as in the recipe Gratinated Cardoons with Ham and Gorgonzola.
Other recipes
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Inexpensive
- Preparation time: 15 Minutes
- Portions: 4
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Autumn, Winter
Ingredients
- 1.75 lbs cardoons
- 2.1 cups whole milk
- 2.8 tbsps Butter
- 1 lemon (juice)
- 0.4 cups flour
- to taste fine salt
- to taste nutmeg
- 3.5 oz cooked ham
- 5.3 oz Gorgonzola
Tools
- Cutting Board
- Pressure Cooker
- Baking Pan
Steps
Using gloves, wash the cardoon stalks well under running water. Prepare a bowl of cold water with the addition of a tablespoon of flour and a squeezed lemon. This will help keep them nice and white. With a knife, remove all the fibers like you do with celery, including the small thorns on the sides, cut them into pieces, and place them in the bowl. Choose the type of cooking; I prefer the pressure cooker with a steaming basket. From the start of whistling, calculate 15 minutes, otherwise, you can boil them in a regular pot for about 40 minutes.
Pour the milk into a saucepan and bring it almost to a boil. Meanwhile, melt the butter over low heat in a small pot, and as soon as it melts and foams (evaporating the water it contains), remove from heat and add the flour all at once, stirring quickly with a whisk to avoid lumps. Return to heat and continue cooking to make the roux golden. Pour the roux into the boiling milk, always stirring with the whisk until the sauce thickens and starts to boil. Leave on the heat for 5 minutes, always stirring. Add salt, grate nutmeg to taste.
In a baking dish, pour two ladles of béchamel sauce and add the cardoons cut into small pieces with a knife or mezzaluna. Make another layer with the chopped ham and gorgonzola in small pieces. Add little salt since the ingredients are already salted. Cover with béchamel, cardoons, more ham, gorgonzola, and béchamel, and bake in a preheated oven at 392°F. Cook for 35-40 minutes until a nice golden crust forms. Turn off and let the Gratinated Cardoons with Ham and Gorgonzola rest. Serve hot.
