Pickle Artichokes Yourself: This Is the Best Way to Proceed

If you pickle artichokes yourself, you have the opportunity to determine the taste and the ingredients yourself. In this article we will give you the best tips on what you need to insert and how best to proceed.

Pickling artichokes – the best tips

Before you start pickling, there are a few tips and tricks you should keep in mind for particularly tasty artichokes:

• If you want to pickle artichokes, you need the artichoke hearts. To get to these, you must first remove the leaves from the vegetables.
• That’s why small artichokes are best. Here you have to remove fewer leaves and therefore have less work and waste. In addition, the hearts of the small vegetables are the perfect size for pickling.
• When buying, you should also make sure to buy fresh artichokes. You can recognize the freshness by the fact that the leaves are tight. If the leaves are already dry and opening, the vegetable is not suitable for pickling.
• The artichoke should also be quite heavy, as this shows that it contains moisture and has not yet dried out. You can also see this when you squeeze the vegetables: if they don’t crack, the artichoke is older.
• The bottom of the flower also reveals the freshness of the artichoke. If this is no longer firm and can be dented easily, you should choose another specimen.

How to prepare the artichokes

If you have bought the vegetables, they must be prepared for pickling. For this you need a long and sharp knife, a peeler, a bowl with water and the juice of one lemon.

1. First peel the stalk of the washed artichoke and then cut it off close to the bottom of the artichoke.
2. Now you have to remove the hard leaves that are lying at the bottom of the vegetables. This can be several rows of sheets.
3. Now cut off the top third of the artichoke, because this is not edible. Then take the knife again and cut off the tough leaves at the top of the artichoke. Cut off the remaining hard leaves at the bottom as well.
4. The artichoke hay, the pink leaves inside, are usually bitter and should not be preserved. This is especially the case with older vegetables.
5. Because of this, you now need to push the leaves of the vegetable outward so you can access the center of the artichoke heart. Now take a teaspoon or cookie cutter and use it to carefully remove the pink leaves.
6. To prevent the artichoke from discoloring, it must be placed in the bowl of water and lemon juice immediately after cleaning.

Pickle artichokes: you need that

The recipe that we present to you here is suitable for 10 small artichokes. You need to insert:

• 100 milliliters of olive oil
• 110 milliliters of white wine vinegar
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 tablespoon of honey
• 1/2 onion
• 1 lemon
• 3 sprigs of rosemary
• 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 sprigs of parsley
• salt and pepper

How to pickle the artichokes

As soon as the artichokes are prepared and you have all the ingredients together, you can start pickling the vegetables:

1. First cut the onion into small cubes.
2. Then fill a large saucepan with water and add 100 milliliters of white wine vinegar, the diced onion, the sprigs of rosemary, the peppercorns and a pinch of salt.
3. Now wait for the mixture to boil. In the meantime, you can take the prepared artichoke hearts out of the water and let them drain.
4. Once the mixture is boiling, you can add the artichokes and let them cook for about half an hour.
5. Meanwhile, grate and squeeze the zest of the lemon. Also finely chop the garlic cloves. Then mix the lemon zest with 2 tablespoons of the juice, olive oil, 10 milliliters of white wine vinegar, the garlic and honey.
6. Then season the mixture with salt and pepper to taste.
7. Once the artichokes are done, you can drain them and place them in the sterilized jars. Then fill them with the prepared oil marinade.
8. Now you can close the jars, put them in the fridge and enjoy the artichokes the next day. The pickled vegetables will keep in the fridge for about six months.