Tis the season for carciofi
a recipe for lasagna con i carciofi & memories from springs past
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Spring has sprung
Spring is here in London. The trees are green, the pollen is blowing, and, along the riverbank, the wild garlic is abundant. But unlike other places around the world, spring in London isn’t bringing the warmer temperatures. It’s bringing chillier weather, sudden rainstorms, and overnight frosts. It’s a recipe for a spring cold, which has hit our flat and put Gianluca on a diet of cough drops and tea with honey.
With all that said, spring to me is a magical time. It’s a time of rebirth and reinvention. From where I sit, it seems as if we’re sitting in a treehouse. A canopy of new and vibrant green leaves fill the blank spaces within the windows frames. Rain blows sideways and I watch as people hurriedly walk across the bridge, using umbrellas as shields from cold droplets. I’m grateful for my seat at the window, watching people pass by and hoping they’re off to somewhere warm.
While the highs and lows of spring weather are quite evident here in England, I believe most of you can say the same thing in these days from wherever you might be reading from. The weather in New Jersey seems to be acting out and I know Rome is feeling some confusion in the daily weather forecast. But before we know it, we’ll be talking about heat waves and sweltering temperatures. So in the meantime, let’s enjoy the spring temperatures with all it has to offer. And what it’s currently offering are some of my favorite spring vegetables - the one and only, carciofi - artichokes.
Around this time in 2021, I offered an online cooking class called Carciofi 3 Ways at Home. This was one of the many online classes I offered over the pandemic period and ended up being one of my favorites. I absolutely love artichokes and grew up my entire life eating them. Funnily enough, I grew up eating them very differently than I do now with my Roman partner. As a child, my grandmother stuffed her artichokes with stale bread, cheese, olives, and parsley. The artichokes were then given a healthy dousing of olive oil and steamed for a few hours. The result were plump and overstuffed artichoke leaves that you nestled between your top and bottom teeth to scrape off the “meat”. Leaf by leaf, we’d work our way through the artichokes, finally making our way to the bread mixture which had, in the steamer, turned into more of a cheesy steamed bread. The stale bread had been revived, salty from seasoning and parmigiano cheese and finished with an added punch of salinity from the olives. We’d finish the dish greedily and with much indulgence with the heart of the artichoke, the mothership. After scrapping off the artichoke’s fuzzy hair, which is referred to as the choke of the artichoke, you have the delicate and delicious artichoke heart. A concentrated hearty serving of “meat” we’d worked so hard to pull off each of the hard outer leaves. Silky and cooked to perfection, the heard melts in your mouth like butter. Although the artichoke seems like a lot of work, it’s worth the efforts for the prize.
Now, that I date a Roman who grew up eating artichokes very differently than I did, I’ve been introduced to some new and delicious ways to enjoy carciofi (artichokes) - my favorite way being fried, the Roman Jewish way. Gianluca, similarly to me, grew up eating his artichokes steamed but not stuffed with bread and without the tough outer leaves which I grew up scraping between my teeth to savor every bit of artichoke I could get.
It’s said that the Romans - the original ones from from 27BC - cooked their artichokes in wine and water which today is what we know now as carciofi alla romana. Carciofi alla romana are prepared by removing the tough outer leaves until the most tender and delicate leaves remain. They are then placed strategically into a pot with mentuccia (a wild herb found in Rome which is a mix between mint and oregano), olive oil, white wine, and seasoned with salt and pepper. They simmer until they’re tender and make the perfect spring side to any dish on the table.
So when Gianluca went home to Rome a few weeks ago, he had to bring me home artichokes from Rome. Straight away, we made carciofi alla romana, but instead of eating them as a side, we took it one step further and made a lasagna with artichokes. We added a few jarred artichokes that his mom had made and gifted us from the previous artichoke season. You can easily make this lasagna with canned or jarred artichokes if you’re unable to find fresh artichokes or if you simply don’t have time to clean and cook artichokes from fresh. No judgement here!
Springs past
With every change of season, I try to remember the years past. How I was feeling, how nature was blooming or maybe not blooming yet. It’s these changes in season that inspire me most - mostly because with each new season brings back “new” foods. For instance in Rome at the moment we say goodbye to things like puntarelle (chicory) and hello to artichokes. And soon, we’ll welcome the combination of melon and prosciutto back into our lives as well as juicy and ripe summer tomatoes.
While, the change of season for me feels food driven, I do sometimes think about things other than food. The nostalgia of seasons past and what’s to come in seasons future are very fresh in my mind these days. My long walks along the riverbank remind me of where I was this time last year. Our phones have comedic timing in sharing memories. Mine shared a memory from 3 years ago when I was working as a chef in residence at Villa Lena located in the Tuscan countryside . I met some really wonderful people during those 2.5 months. And so as I scrolled through some of these memories, I thought I’d pull a few of them out to share here this week. I hope you enjoy reliving these moments with me as much as I enjoyed living them.
What memories from past springs do you have? If you feel comfortable to share your favorite change of season memories or recipes, please share them in the thread and comments below. I’d love to hear about them!
Lasagna con i carciofi
This recipe is so simple and it can be dressed up however you’d like. You could add a melting cheese into the mix like mozzarella or maybe a smoked mozzarella would work nicely for some depth of flavor. Enjoy making it yours!
Ingredients
300g of dried lasagna pasta sheets (about 16 sheets of lasagna)
12 artichokes - cleaned and cooked OR jarred
Nutmeg for seasoning
300g of grated parmigiano
Salt and pepper for seasoning
Béchamel sauce
800ml of milk
5 Tbsp of butter
5 Tbsp of flour
Method
Start my preparing your béchamel sauce. In a sauce pan, melt 5 tbsp of butter. Add 5 tbsp of flour to the pan to combine with the butter. Stir and toast the flour, cooking the flour but being careful not to burn the mixture. Slowly add the milk, whisking away any lumps. Allow the mixture to simmer and thicken until the consistency coats the back of a wooden spoon. Season with salt, pepper, and a few dashes of nutmeg.
Chop your cooked artichokes into chunky, bitesized pieces. If you are cooking them from scratch, I recommend steaming them with olive oil, parsley and a dash of white wine. If you’re taking the jarred route (no shame) you can chop them into pieces to prepare them for assembly.
Depending on the lasagna you have - par boil the pasta to al dente. In a casserole dish that’s about 20x30 cm, begin to build the lasagna. Start with a layer of béchamel, then pasta, followed by béchamel, parmigiano, and artichokes. Repeat this process about 4-5 times or until you’ve used all of your ingredients. Top with lots of parmigiano cheese and bake at 400F/200C covered with tinfoil for about 30 minutes. Remove the tinfoil and bake uncovered for about 15 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Enjoy!
Until next time at a standing reservation…
With love & snacks,
Paige
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Need a happy moment?
What a throw back photo of me and my friend and incredible chef, Jake! We attended culinary school together back in 2018 at Leith’s School of Food and Wine. He is founder of a gorgeous supper club called Maris. At the Maris supper club, Jake cooked up seasonal Levantine food. Delicious spreads of food you most definitely want to eat - lamb shawarma, mutabal, beetroot hummus, labneh…the list goes on! A huge thank you to Jake for being a loyal standing reservation reader as well! Look forward to cooking together again soon. Shawarma anyone??
