The Dancing Artichoke that you can find only in Urla..

Description

The Dancing Artichoke that you can find only in Urla..

Artichoke Rice
Enginarlı pilav · the rice with spring inside

Since my childhood, my favourite vegetable to cook has been the artichoke. Its thorny shell, its resilience, the hidden benefit and softness inside. The way you peel it, and the effort of keeping it from oxidizing — half a lemon rubbed against the cut to hold its natural colour. It always impressed me. And its benefit for the liver, which carries our anger — it serves the body’s detoxification.

Nowadays you can buy the frozen, already-peeled ones from the market. I still prefer to peel them myself.

And Urla is the best place to find milk-tender artichokes (süt enginar) — not babies, teenagers — the ones so soft that when you shake them, they don’t crack. They dance.

The İstanbul artichokes are bigger, more abundant. But the Urla dance is hard to find in them. Their bottoms (çanak) don’t come out from those — they stay rigid. That’s the seed. That’s the air. That’s the water.

In the Urla ones, you eat even the çanak. You suck the stem in your mouth. Every part is a different medicine. Nothing to throw away.

Urla artichokes are expensive. You don’t find them easily at the market — and if you do, there is no continuity. You have to know a farm. You ask, and they set some aside for you.

Ingredients
2 cups rice · 6 spring onions, chopped · 4 cups water · 1 tea-glass olive oil (~100 ml) · 5 tsp salt · 2 tsp sugar · 2 packs frozen artichoke · Juice of 1 lemon · Fresh dill, to finish · Grated lemon zest, to finish

Method
1. Sauté the spring onion whites in olive oil over low heat, 4-5 minutes.
2. Add the rice and stir until glossy.
3. Pour in the hot water, salt and sugar. Cover, turn heat to low, cook until the rice absorbs all the water.
4. Take off the heat. Lift the lid, drape a clean kitchen towel over the pot and cover again. Let stand 5 minutes.
5. Fold in lemon zest, fresh dill and the green parts of the spring onions. Serve warm or cold.

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