Raw artichoke salad with Parmigiano shavings

I don’t know if at one time or another you have been extreme fans of something or someone to the embarrassing extent of losing your dignity just by hearing their name. When I was younger, I confess to having gone through these types of trashy-mystical experiences in relation to a varied range of musical, cinematic, and even literary artists whom I now take the liberty of not naming with the cheap, but real, excuse that none of them had anything to do with Italy. Although nowadays I no longer let myself be dragged by admiration or baser instincts toward certain people, with some foods I literally lose my mind. If I didn’t share a room, I would cover it with posters of forest truffles in swimsuits; if I were younger, I would throw my underwear at the cheese counter and, as for the star of today’s salad, the artichoke, when I see it poking its head out of someone’s plastic bag, who has kidnapped it before me, I have to breathe very deeply and repeat to myself that it wouldn’t work out between us so as not to shout the famous “We want your baby!” at it.

Fortunately for me, in Rome and its surroundings, there is an abundance of dishes in which the Roman artichoke lady, with her half-lilac outer leaves and much more usable and tender than ours, is the absolute star. The most famous examples are: alla romana (stuffed with mint, garlic, parsley, and boiled in oil) and alla giudia (fried whole in olive oil). I discovered the salad that is the star of today’s post thanks to my hysterical passion for this vegetable, an impulse similar to the one that led me to compulsively beg my poor father to rent me a VHS copy of one of the most dreadful films on the planet Who’s that girl?, because of my idolatry for its protagonist. When I read carciofi I didn’t value, nor did I imagine anything else. The word dazzled me and prevented me from reading another that accompanied it, which was not unimportant: INSALATA. When the blessed invention arrived, before daring to try them, I spent a very long minute trying to remember each and every one of the ideas of this great genius of improvised inventions. They were raw… Finally, I dismissed the idea of bursting into tears or slapping myself a couple of times, I gathered my courage and tried them. Fantastic. They had passed a test as hard and definitive as the one that so many sensitive and sensible males subject their beloveds to in order to know if “she is the one”: Imagine them bald and straining while sitting on the toilet. If you still like them just as much or more, it is true love.

Raw artichoke and Parmigiano shaving salad

Autor: La ragazza col mattarello

Número de raciones: 2

Tiempo de preparación: 

Tiempo de cocción:  15 minutos

Tiempo total:  15 minutos

Ingredientes

• 2 artichokes
• 1 lemon
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• ½ teaspoon honey
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Parsley

Instrucciones

1. Wash and peel the outermost and toughest leaves of the artichokes. Place them to soak in a bowl filled with water and the juice of one lemon, so they do not oxidize.
2. Put the oil, mustard, honey, salt, and pepper to taste in a cup and whisk with a fork until you get a vinaigrette, which in this case, does not contain vinegar, despite the name.
3. Drain the artichokes, dry them with paper towels, and cut them into very thin slices. If you don't have a mandoline, it's quite a pain, it must be said.
4. Chop a little parsley.
5. Place the artichoke slices on the plate, dress them with the vinaigrette, distribute the Parmigiano shavings on top, and sprinkle with the parsley.

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