Braised Artichoke and Tomato Pesto

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college_cook

Head Chef
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Mar 19, 2005
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This is just something I came up with tonight, I felt like giving myself a challenge. I've not ever really worked with artichokes very much, and I'm generally not a huge fan of tomatoes, so the challenge was to turn these ingredients into something I loved, and I think I achieved that.

1/2 bottle of white wine
2 Artichokes (what you're after here are the hearts, so just buy those if you rather)
1 pint of vine-ripened grape tomatos
6 cloves rough-chopped garilc
S+P
EVOO
Pine nuts or others, if you desire

Braise your tomatos, artichoke hearts, and garlic in the wine for about an hour, and then very slowly reduce the wine until there is just barely enough to cover the bottom of the pot. This took me about another hour. Put the contents of the pot into a food processor, adding a good sized handful of nuts. I would reccomend toasting the pine nuts first. Finally, slowly drizzle in EVOO until desired conistency is reached.

I really like this a lot, and served it with some chicken breasts that I cooked in a sort of faux sous-vide method.
 
Sounds interesting.... what did you do with the pesto? Tossed with pasta, garnish a chop or steak, maybe even lamb with it???? I need to experiment more often!!!
 
Sounds wonderful. Would the bottled artichokes work okay too or do I need to get fresh ones? I would skip the pinenuts though, but that's just me. I saw a great artichoke pesto recipe on Quick Fix Meals with Robin Miller on Foodnetwork. She added the artichokes with garlic and lots of fresh basil and poured it over pan seared chicken. Looked delicious. I'm going to try your recipe.
 
I imagine canned or jarred artichoke hearts would work just fine, and you probably wouldn't need to braise them for quite so long. Just make sure to get ones packed in water and not some funky italian marinade.
 
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