Vegetables Recipes - Cardoon, Roasted Sweet Pepper and Anchovy Gratin Recipe

Ingredients 

• 1 lb cooked cardoon stems) strings and skin removed

• 6 tablespoons olive oil) plus more for the dish

• 1 small roasted sweet red pepper, peeled, seeded, and cut into small squares

• 4-6 canned anchory fillets, drained and chopped

• salt and freshly ground black pepper

• 1 1/2 cups bread crumbs, made from a slightly stale loaf

• finely grated zest of 1 lemon

• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

• 4 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Serves 2-4

---

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 400F. Slice the cooked cardoon stems into 1 inch pieces. (If any of the remaining fibrous strings still seem tough, here is a second opportunity to remove them.)

2. Place the stems in a lightly oiled shallow baking dish. Scatter over the red pepper and anchovies, and season with salt and pepper, bearing in mind the saltiness of the anchovies.

3. Combine the bread crumbs, lemon zest, and parsley with a few more grindings of black pepper.

4. Bind the mixture together with 4 tablespoons of the olive oil and scatter this over the cardoons. Sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese and the remaining olive oil.

5. Bake for 20 minutes, until the top is golden and crisp.

Note: You will need a cardoon head weighing about 2 1/4 lb when trimmed of its base and coarse outer leaves (this preliminary trimming will have been done if you are buying your cardoon). This will give you about lib of stems after a final trimming of foliage and spines.