Kimchi Sour Cream with Grilled Artichokes Recipe

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May 30, 2011Kimchi Sour Cream with Grilled Artichokes Recipe

Roy Choi, the mastermind behind the Kogi BBQ taco trucks in Los Angeles is fabulous with mixing up culture and cuisine. His new Culver City restaurant, A-Frame, is in a former IHOP, hence the name. The food is polyglot Los Angeles. It commingles ingredients and culinary concepts that were born in different places on the planet but somehow met and married in the City of Angels. Choi tells the story of modern multiculturalism in his food.

One of the memorable things I tasted was Choi’s kimchi sour cream, which he served as a dip for sweet potato fries. The kimchi sour cream is a riff on ranch dressing, but with just a hint of tang and garlic. You barely detect the Korean edge but it does subtly let itself be known. 

Now that we’re firmly in grilling season, I decided to make my own rendition of Choi’s kimchi sour cream and serve it with grilled vegetables. I’ve tried it with artichokes and asparagus. Both were fabulous. I imagine you could grill summer squash such as zucchini, patty pans, or crook neck.  I suppose you could call it an Asian ranch dressing and put it on a salad!

Here’s the recipe for what I did. Give it a whirl and remember to use the juice from a mature jar of kimchi. If you don’t have “stinky” kimchi, double the amount of kimchi juice used. If you want a little oomph, add a few drops of fish sauce to the kimchi sour cream. Fish sauce is often used in making kimchi.

Serves 2 to 4

Salt
Water
2 artichokes
1 bay leaf
6 black peppercorns
2 large cloves garlic, smashed

Kimchi Sour Cream
1 1/2 teaspoons mature (stinky) kimchi juice
2 pinches sea salt
2 pinches sugar
Smidgen of crushed garlic
1 teaspoon unseasoned rice vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoons sour cream
1 1/2 tablespoons mayonnaise

Canola or olive oil

1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. While you wait for that, remove any hard or dead looking leaves from the artichokes. Cut off the stem from each artichoke, setting them aside. Trim 1/2 inch from the top of each artichoke, then use scissors to remove the tips of any thorny leaves. Now split each artichoke in half. This makes cooking them much faster.

When the water comes to a boil, add the artichoke halves and stems. Throw in the bay leaf, peppercorns, and garlic. Cover and vigorously simmer until tender. I estimated 30 to 45 minutes for my artichokes but the cooking time depends on the size and variety of artichokes. Check the cooking progress every fifteen minutes or so.  When done, a leaf should pull away easily but the artichoke should not be mushy. 

Use tongs to remove the artichokes from the pot, placing them on a plate, cut side down, to drain and cool.  The artichokes can be prepped up to 2 days in advance. Return them to room temperature before grilling.

2. To make the kimchi sour cream, stir together the kimchi juice, salt, sugar, garlic, fish sauce, vinegar, sour cream, and mayonnaise. Let sit for 5 minutes then taste and adjust the flavor. Cover until you are ready to serve. Makes about 1/4 cup.

3. Use a spoon or grapefruit knife to remove and discard the furry choke at the center of each artichoke half. Transfer artichokes to a bowl or plate and pour oil over them, making sure you get some between the leaves. Grill them over medium-hot (medium-high) heat, turning frequently, until they have heated through and picked up a tiny bit of char, 5 to 10 minutes. (If you sometimes mistakenly undercook the artichokes like I do, this grilling time is great for finishing the cooking process.) Transfer to a platter and serve warm or at room temperature with the kimchi sour cream.

Posted in Recipes: All, Recipes: Fast and Easy, Recipes: Gluten-Free , Recipes: Grilled, Recipes: Non-Vietnamese, Recipes: Vegetable Sides and Pickles, Recipes: Vegetarian | Permalink

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such interesting flavors and so creative. love it!

Posted by:Averie (LoveVeggiesandYoga) |June 01, 2011 at 12:12 PM

Those are really pretty, andrea, and i think a wonderful medium for oysters. not sure i'm quite ready to make those thin skins yet.

Posted by:LOUBOUTIN SHOES |June 02, 2011 at 01:28 AM

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Fried Minted Artichokes – A new addition to the Spring garden

Every spring, Diane and I go through the annual “What veggies are we going to plant?” ritual.

First the weather starts to warm and we begin to crave more than leafy greens, sugar snap peas, radishes, and carrots.  We’ll hit Home Depot and nearly buy a bunch of boring varieties which we don’t really want but that is all they have because is it too early in the season. We’ll barely hold off on purchasing, then two days later the weather will drop winter cold again and we congratulate ourselves on not buying too early.

Repeat two more times.

Finally we can’t take it anymore and the inevitable excursions to our favorite nurseries and farmers’ markets takes place.  By now the cool stuff is available and we buy twice the amount of varieties of what we originally intended. Mostly tomatoes, bell peppers, chilies, and eggplant.

Good nurseries and growers are dangerous. The 3? pots costing a mere $2-4 each. We’ll find some of our favorite varieties: tomatoes like the Anna Russian, Kentucky Beefsteak, Sun Golds (which we don’t even need to buy since it always reseeds itself, but we do anyway), chilies like the padron, shishito, a medley of habaneros.

Of course in searching for the favorites, we’ll discover a bunch of new-to-us types and have to get a few of those.  Somehow the bill ends up being $70-$80 of $3 or $4 items by the time we hit the register. Then a couple days later we think of a favorite we forgot to get and head back to the nurseries.

Repeat two more times.

One veggie I always want, but we never buy, is to grow artichokes. They just take up soooo much room and I can’t convince Diane to sacrifice some of her radish or beet soil allocation. I’m not giving up my arugula space either and it is unthinkable to reduce any of the tomatoes or chilies growing room.

But this year we’ve added a couple more raised planters, and I finally badgered Diane enough that she relented one corner to artichokies. Especially after reminding her that she could use the blossoms for styling and table decorations!

The main reason I want to grow the artichokes is for the baby artichokes. I love them.  So cute and tender I could just eat them up.  Wait… I do eat them up. Strip them, then slice, fry, salt, and devour them.  Sounds a little S&M like, but it sure is tasty.

Here’s a recipe for one of our favorite ways to cook up the baby artichokes, Fried Minted Baby Artichokes. Tasty little tidbits we tend to eat much more than we intend to. One note on making them, be very liberal in stripping away the outer leaves.  As a general rule, the darker the color the leaf, then tougher it will be after frying. Usually I’ll strip almost half of the leaves off of store bought baby artichokes.

If you like the crunchy outer leaves feel free to strip a little less.  You can always strip more leaves off after frying if you change your mind. You can also make this with the “adult” artichokes, but you might want to scoop out the choke (the little hairs over the heart.)

We’d love to hear what everyone else is planning for or excited to grow this year. What’s your favorite varieties or what are you trying to make room for. Garden Geeks Unite!

-Todd

crispy crunchy tender baby artichokes

 Print This Recipe
Fried Minted Artichoke Recipe
Be very liberal in stripping the leaves off of the artichokes when prepping.  The outer leaves will fry up tougher. If you need to, you can always strip more leaves off after frying. Make sure oil is hot before starting to fry, and pull garlic just before it reaches golden brown, as it will become bitter if overcooked. Serves 2 or 3. 12 Baby Artichokes10 cloves Garlic@ 40 large Mint Leaves, finely sliced1/2 Lemon, cut into wedgesSea Saltoil for fryingPrep the Artichokes. Strip away the outer leaves until they are a very light green (usually about 1/3 -1/2 of the outer leaves). Trim the end of the stem and the top of the artichokes. Slice in half.Fry. Pour enough oil in a large saute pan to fill 1/4? deep. Heat over med-high heat. When oil is hot, place artichokes cut side down in a single layer (fry in batches if necessary) scatter garlic cloves between the artichokes and add half of the mint.Fry until garlic and artichokes until lightly golden (about 2-3 minutes) then flip and fry until just done (about another 2 minutes). Make sure to pull garlic out just before being it is fully golden as it will continue to cook a bit more after being removed from oil and will become bitter if overcooked.Drain on paper towels, squeeze a little lemon juice over artichokes, season with sea salt and toss with remaining mint leaves.  Plate with additional lemon wedges. Serve warm or at room temperature.

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