Stuffed Artichokes with Bulgur and Sausage

If you’ve never had artichokes, this recipe will make you an artichoke fan! These stuffed artichokes with bulgur, sausage and mushrooms are so delicious, you’ll want to make them all the time!

I’ve always loved artichokes; their subtle, earthy flavour goes well with so many dishes. But, artichokes can be a pain to clean. If you want to get to the delicious and tender heart, you have to work for it and throw away half of the outer artichoke. It’s labour intensive and can seem almost wasteful for something so small. Yet, I think it’s worth the trouble because there’s nothing quite like an artichoke heart!

If you want to learn how to clean an artichoke, check this short video out, it’s quite informative and spares me the trouble of explaining what you need to do with a whole, fresh artichoke. This recipe requires the cleaned out artichoke heart, so you’ll be throwing away most of the external leaves. Alternatively, you can use frozen, uncooked artichoke hearts and spare yourself the trouble! Fresh is always better, but frozen works too. The choice is yours!

Bulgur (or burghul as it is known in Arabic), is basically cracked wheat that you can use for a variety of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean recipes. It’s also great for stuffing vegetables or even small birds such as quail or pigeon. It’s also widely available and cheap, which makes it a great ingredient! If you can’t find bulgur you can use short grain rice instead, although it won’t really be the same since bulgur has a distinctive, slightly nutty flavour. Also, vegetarians and vegans can modify this recipe to suit their needs by skipping the sausages and using vegetable stock. It’ll still be delicious! As with all the other recipes in this blog, this recipe is for two adults and you can modify the quantities according to your needs.

Ingredients

1. Two large, fresh globe artichokes
2. Half a cup of dried bulgur
3. One and a half cups turkey, chicken or vegetable stock
4. Two sausages (you can use any good fresh sausages you like)
5. One large fresh Roma tomato
6. Three medium cremini or white button mushrooms
7. One tablespoon canola oil
8. One teaspoon olive oil
9. Juice of one lemon
10. Salt and pepper according to taste

Method

1. Soak the bulgur in enough water to just cover the top for half an hour to one hour.
2. Preheat your oven to 380 degrees Fahrenheit (for conversion to Celsius, please check the Conversions section of this website).
3. Clean your artichokes to get to the heart, discard any external leaves. Make sure to drizzle some lemon juice on the artichoke hearts so they don’t go black.
4. In a small, nonstick frying pan heat the canola oil. Don’t use too much oil as the sausages will render out a lot of fat.
5. Chop the sausages into bite-sized pieces and fry them in the frying pan, do not season as the sausages probably have enough salt and spices in them.
6. While the sausages cook, chop your mushrooms and tomato into bite-sized chunks.
7. Remove the sausages to a plate lined with a paper towel to drain the excess fat. Fry the mushrooms in the sausage fat until they brown and caramelise slightly. Season with a small amount of salt. Once done remove them as well to a paper-towel-lined plate.
8. Fry the tomato chunks in the remaining fat until the tomato peel browns and the tomato wilts a little. Don’t let it turn into tomato sauce! You want the pieces to maintain their shape.
9. To assemble: mix the bulgur with the sausages, mushrooms and tomato and spoon enough of the mixture to fill the artichokes.
10. Place the artichokes in an oven-proof pan or casserole dish. Spoon any extra mixture of bulgur, sausage, mushroom, tomato into the pan or casserole dish around the artichokes.
11. Pour the stock onto the artichokes and bulgur mixture in the pan. Drizzle a tiny bit of olive oil on top and season with a little salt and pepper according to taste.
12. Bake in the oven for one hour, or until all the stock is absorbed by the bulgur. Enjoy!

Do you like stuffed artichoke hearts? How do you like to make them? Let me know in the comments!

For similar recipes, check out:

1. Baked Eggs and Mushrooms
2. Stuffed Roast Quail
3. Roast Stuffed Pigeon

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