Chef Juliette
Artichauts à la Barigoule
Artichauts à la Barigoule turns tender artichokes into little braising vessels, packed with mushrooms and fat bacon, wrapped, wine-braised, then dressed with only a spoonful of dark, concentrated sauce.
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Fonds d’Artichauts Sautés
Created by Chef Juliette
Based on No. 2036, Fonds d’Artichauts Sautés, from Le Guide Culinaire (1907) by Auguste Escoffier
Raw young artichoke bottoms meet a hot buttered pan, bronze at the edges, and finish under fines herbes. The lesson is simple and exact: tenderness begins with youth, and browning begins with heat.
Side Dishes
French
Weeknight
Quick Meal
25 min
Active Time
10 min cook•35 min total
Yield4 servings
Fonds d’Artichauts Sautés (sautéed artichoke bottoms) teach one exact lesson: a quick sauté can only finish what the ingredient has already promised. Start with young, tightly closed artichokes whose bottoms are tender enough to cook from raw. Mature ones will brown before they soften, and no flourish of herbs will make them tender.
The brigade entry assumes a commis to strip and trim a basket of heads, with a hot pan waiting the instant service calls. It needs no saucier, stockpot, or salamander because none belongs here. Only the scale has changed: six young artichokes and one wide skillet replace the basket and the line of pans. The brigade’s trimming queue is scaffolding and goes; raw slicing, butter sautéing, and the herb finish are the dish, so they stay in their original order. One cook, one stove, one evening.
Have the skillet ready before you slice the bottoms, season them only at the last moment, and keep the pan broad enough to hold them without crowding. The uninterrupted sizzle is the step that matters most.
Fonds d’artichauts sautés belong to the Parisian bourgeois and classical grand-kitchen service of légumes, where the tender base was treated as a vegetable in its own right and sent to table in a shallow vegetable dish. The preparation moved between home dining rooms and brigade kitchens because its refinement came from exact trimming and last-minute cooking, not from a separate sauce. It is distinct from Provence’s artichauts à la barigoule, whose olive oil, aromatics, and moist cooking express another regional method; these fonds remain a butter sauté finished with fines herbes.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
small young globe artichokes
Quantity
6 (about 2 lb / 900 g whole, yielding about 10 oz / 280 g trimmed bottoms)
unsalted butter
Quantity
3 tablespoons (45 ml / 42 g)
fine salt
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml / 3 g)
freshly ground black pepper
Quantity
1/4 teaspoon (1.25 ml / 0.6 g)
fines herbes, preferably parsley, chervil, chives, and tarragon
Quantity
2 tablespoons (30 ml / 6 g)
finely chopped
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| small young globe artichokes | 6 (about 2 lb / 900 g whole, yielding about 10 oz / 280 g trimmed bottoms) |
| unsalted butter | 3 tablespoons (45 ml / 42 g) |
| fine salt | 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml / 3 g) |
| freshly ground black pepper | 1/4 teaspoon (1.25 ml / 0.6 g) |
| fines herbes, preferably parsley, chervil, chives, and tarragonfinely chopped | 2 tablespoons (30 ml / 6 g) |
Equipment Needed
- •12-inch heavy skillet
- •Small sharp paring knife
- •Sturdy teaspoon or melon baller
- •Shallow vegetable serving dish
Instructions
- 1
Prepare the pan
Chop the fines herbes and set a shallow serving dish beside the stove. Place a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium-high heat so it is ready when the artichokes are sliced. The cooking is brief, and stopping to hunt for a dish or chop herbs lets the bottoms discolor and shed moisture.
- 2
Trim the bottoms
Snap away the outer leaves from each artichoke until the pale inner cone remains. Cut away that cone just above the fleshy base, trim every dark green patch from the sides, and cut the stem flush. Scoop out the fibrous choke with a teaspoon or melon baller, scraping gently until the hollow is clean. You should have a neat, solid fond about 1/2 inch thick.
- 3
Slice and season
Slice each raw fond about 1/8 inch thick. Keep the slices even so they become tender together, then season immediately with the salt and pepper. Do not let the seasoned slices wait: salt draws water to the surface, and wet artichokes soften before they brown.
- 4
Sauté in butter
Add the butter to the hot skillet. When it foams briskly, add the artichoke slices in one uncrowded layer and toss to coat. Sauté for 7 to 10 minutes, turning every minute or two rather than stirring constantly, until the edges are butter-gold and a knife tip enters the centers with only a faint resistance. If the pan falls silent and liquid collects, lift out half the artichokes, boil the moisture away, and return them in two batches. Ça se rattrape. If the butter darkens before the centers are tender, lower the heat, add 1 tablespoon of water, and toss until it evaporates before restoring the heat for a final minute of browning.
- 5
Finish with herbs
Tip the artichokes and every drop of butter into the shallow serving dish. Shower them with the fines herbes, toss once, and serve immediately while the edges remain bronzed and the centers tender. À table!
Chef Tips
- •Choose small, tightly closed artichokes that feel heavy and squeak faintly when squeezed. Large mature heads are excellent for boiling or braising, but their bottoms are too fibrous for this raw-to-pan method. If young artichokes are unavailable, change the dish rather than the standard.
- •A short, sharp paring knife gives better control than a large chef’s knife when rounding the sides of the fonds. Trim away every dark green patch; what looks merely green when raw becomes tough on the plate.
- •Fines herbes should taste fresh and gentle. Use parsley and chives if chervil is difficult to find, with only a small amount of tarragon. A heavy hand with tarragon buries the artichoke.
- •Serve these beside roast chicken, pan-cooked veal, or an omelette. Artichokes can make wine taste unexpectedly sweet, so choose a very dry, high-acid white such as Muscadet and avoid heavily oaked bottles.
- •The finished artichokes are best straight from the skillet. Leftovers keep for one day in the refrigerator, but they soften; reheat them quickly in a dry skillet with a small piece of butter.
Advance Preparation
- •The fines herbes can be chopped up to 4 hours ahead, covered with a barely damp towel, and refrigerated.
- •For the best color, trim and slice the fonds immediately before cooking. If you must trim them up to 30 minutes ahead, submerge the whole trimmed bottoms in cold water, then drain and dry them thoroughly before slicing. Wet slices will not brown.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 75g)
Calories
115 calories
Total Fat
9 g
Saturated Fat
5 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
3 g
Cholesterol
23 mg
Sodium
360 mg
Total Carbohydrates
8 g
Dietary Fiber
4 g
Sugars
1 g
Protein
2 g
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