Lasagne of artichokes

It was Easter lunch and five friends came from near to Rome to share it with me. Carbohydrates abounded, and this was one of them. It was a dark and dreary day in which enough rain fell to float anyone’s boat. The photos are all either dark like this one or overexposed by flash, but the food was not affected by how poorly I photographed it. When people are salivating for lunch, you can’t be fussing around letting things go cold, eh?

I’ve course after course to talk about, but I want to start with artichokes because the season will soon be over and now is the time to cook with them. These are violette, tiny ones that never grow bigger, but you can do the same with globe artichokes, the kind available over most of the world. It takes fewer because they are bigger, and you should pry them open and scrape out the raw choke with a teaspoon before cutting them up.

This is supposed to serve 6-8 people, but I think that’s if it’s all you are eating, which would be fine. It will make a fine vegetarian dish. As one of two first courses I quickly realized it was too much and assembled a second, smaller casserole lined with foil and froze it. I’ll take it out of the casserole when solid, wrap it even better and keep it frozen. When I thaw it I will add a glug of milk before baking it.

I am not going to tell you this is a quick and easy dish you can whip up in the thirty minutes before bedtime. Lasagne has parts, lots of them. Each part is cooked before assembling the casserole, and those many dishes, pots and pans add up. You can do it ahead, though, which I did, and wash up the mess leaving you with just the baking dish. It’s like seeing the swan gliding across the lake and never seeing the legs pumping away under the surface. Of course, if you want the credit you can always leave the dirty pots stacked up in the kitchen. Ummmm.

Allow plenty of preparation time, maybe even the day before. You’ll need time to prepare the artichokes and cook them. You need time to grate the cheese. You need a little time to briefly par-cook the pasta and time to make the besciamella. It adds up.

Lasagne di Carciofi

the artichokes:
6 small artichokes, trimmed well and cut into spikes
olive oil, a generous amount, perhaps 4-6 tablespoons, you will use it all
salt

the besciamella:
6 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons butter
about 1/2 teaspoon salt
just under 1 liter/quart of milk
3 drops Tabasco or a pinch of cayenne
generous scraping of nutmeg

1 pound/500 g fresh lasagna sheets
2-3 ounces/75 g grated Parmigiano cheese
2 ounces/60 g provolone, sliced thinly
dry bread crumbs

Clean and trim the artichokes, peeling the stems, too, until they look approximately like the below:

Drop each one into water with lemon juice to keep them from turning black, then cut them into little spikes like this, more or less.

Sautè the artichoke spikes in generous olive oil with some salt. When they are beginning to color a little, add about 4 ounces/125 ml water and cover the pan until they are tender.

To make the besciamella, follow the general directions I published before, but this one is medium and has perhaps a bit more perfume of nutmeg. When it is half cooked, taste for salt and correct, because since this will be part of a pasta dish, it will need to stand up to that extra quantity of bland ingredient.

Just before assembling, heat salted water for cooking the pasta sheets. Keep a clean, folded kitchen towel nearby for drying them as they exit the water. Cook the number of sheets you need for a layer at a time so they won’t get gluey and stick together. I use tongs to remove them from the water to the towel.

Arrange all your ready ingredients except the pasta around your flattish casserole dish. Sprinkle the bottom of the dish with breadcrumbs. This helps the lasagne come out of the pan nicely.

Arrange enough pasta sheets to cover the bottom and come up the sides of the baking dish. The other layers will only cover the area, not climb the sides. My main casserole used 4 sheets for this layer and only 2 for the ensuing layers.

Add a scattering using 1/4 of the cooked artichoke spears with some of their oil. Add 2 ladles of besciamella, spreading it around a bit. Add a generous scattering of Parmigiano. Do those layers two more times, then after the next layer of pasta, just scrape onto it the last of the besciamella, scatter the artichokes, then add the slices of provolone.

Cover this whole thing with aluminum foil, sealing the edges. Put it into a preheated oven at 350°F or 175°C for twenty minutes, then remove the foil and allow it to brown for five minutes. Eat it smoking hot.

This should taste mostly of artichoke. Everything else in the dish is there to support the flavor of artichoke, to lift it up from tasty vegetable to sublime vegetable surrounded with creamy, crunchy and chewy things. I am in a miserly way keeping the small second casserole for a rainy day after these precious winter blossoms are long gone.

We drank Prosecco with this lasagne, a wine I am finding is one of the few that artichokes don’t ruin.

I will send this post off to Presto Pasta Nights, hosted this coming Friday April 9 by Ruth at Once upon a Feast. Make sure to drop by her place on Friday, because it is always a treat!