Bread Salad

Bread salads seem to have been popping up all over the place in the last few days and who am I to buck a trend?

I had two magnificent globe artichokes, one of which was destined for a simple vinaigrette, the other to be gratinéed. In the end though, simple greed won over. Rather than work my way parsimoniously through the scrag ends of bracts I decided to cut straight to the chase and whip out their hearts. I have, dutifully, put the leaves in the fridge because I might fancy them tomorrow but tonight I have dined comme une gourmande if my French hasn't failed me. It often does.

Cook your artichokes in a large pan of water, nicest if you have a half of lemon in the water. You'll need to simmer them for about 40 minutes or until a lower leaf, gently tugged detaches easily from the head. Drain and allow to cool.

Make garlic croutons with slightly stale bread, torn or cut into bite sized pieces. Toss the bread cubes in good olive oil, sprinkle with finely chopped garlic and place in hot oven until crisped and golden.

At the same time, pop a few quarters of good ripe tomato into the oven, this really helps to concentrate the still feeble flavour of the early season tomatoes and encourage them to combine more readily with the rest of the cooked ingredients.

Deleaf and dechoke your artichoke. Removing the leaves is easy and I use a teaspoon to gently pull away the choking immature florets. If you look closely at the picture you can see tiny dimples where each little clump of hairs has detached. Rinse briefly and divide each heart into eight or ten pieces. You can also harvest a little edible pulp from within the thickly fibrous stem.

Douse your artichoke bits in lashings of lemon juice. I know it's only a couple of days since I was bitching about too much acid in the food, but I reserve the right to be inconsistent. Artichoke hearts demand lemon.

Mix the croutons with the hearts, dress a plate with the tomato quarters and pile the mixture within. Sprinkle with chopped green herbs of your choice and a little salt and pepper if liked. Allow to sit for 20 minutes, no more, to blend the flavours, garlicky, lemony, herby and then eat as quickly as you can. Leave it too long and all the crispness of the croutons is lost.

I forgot to take a picture of my artichokes before I prepared them so here's one I took another time.