In article ,
"david taylor" writes:
|
| I think Nick Maclaren and I may be talking at cross purposes. The stems of
| cardoons immediately below the flower heads and above the leaves are very
| bitter-flavour like dandelion(unblanched), hops or the highly convoluted
| Indian concurbit whose name I don't remember.

Not really.

| The recommended blanching procedure is to tie up the leaves when the plant
| has stopped growing around mid September, wrap paper or polythene round the
| plant, earth up and leave for a month. This is more than just immersing the
| stems in boiling water and in my case has resulted in an insipid tasting
| vegetable.

I blanched them in seakale pots, though while they were growing, used
only the inner stems, and then blanched them in the cooking sense.
That matched some references I had. It is possible that the variety
I grew didn't lose its bitterness, or that only ypur process works.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.