I would like to braise an artichoke,
serve it with a saffron aquafaba mayonnaise, and a salad.
What's a saffron aquafaba mayonnaise?
It's a mayonnaise made without any eggs,
so in place of the eggs is the water from beans, or chickpea water.
OK. I'm going to learn something here. Show me, please.
Firstly, you just want to get the saffron sort of soaking,
so that the colour really runs through this,
and then I'm going to get on with preparing the artichoke,
'cause that takes a while to cook.
Artichoke hearts, or the whole artichoke?
The heart of the artichoke.
You know, there's a lot to lose on here,
so it's much easier for the knife to cut through
if you remove the outer leaves.
These are really tough.
So you just keep peeling them off
until you get to the lighter leaves.
If they don't know what they're doing,
they could be in danger of just chopping it down
to absolutely nothing.
All right, so now I'm going to use a spoon to remove the choke,
which is the furry, spiky bit.
All that choke's got to come out, hasn't it?
Otherwise, you get a mouthful of hairy fibre.
It's a fantastic skill, it's great to see a chef prep an artichoke.
That's what I'm looking for,
and this is everything that comes off the artichoke.
Right, beautiful.
So I've just boiled some water here.
I'm going to drop a bit of vinegar.
This is just to keep the artichoke from discolouring
while it's cooking.
So I've just dropped some thyme, some rosemary,
just for some flavour through the artichoke.
And then put a lid on,
OK, and I'm going to leave that to cook,
anything from sort of five to seven minutes.
I'm going to make the mayonnaise now with the aquafaba.
Now, this I need to see.
In the bowl, I've got mustard,
the saffron that's been soaking in the aquafaba liquid.
I'm going to add a little bit more of the aquafaba to it,
and then whisk that up.
That is thickening up like an egg yolk.
That's remarkable!
When you see it thicken, you start adding your oil.
Well, the process is no different at all from using an egg?
Yes, and if you add all the oil in too quick, it'll just split,
you know, if you're whisking it too much, it won't bind.
OK, so I've just checked my artichoke. For me, it's cooked.
I'm going to take it out to cool.
If it's going in a salad,
we don't want this artichoke being piping hot.
So we've got some beautiful rocket salad, some radishes,
carrots, there's olives.
I'm going to use some of the chickpeas, as well, in mine,
and I'm making a little pickling liquid,
cos, er, it's just nice to add a bit of pickle through this.
And we're ready to plate.
OK, so I have my mayonnaise...
Mmm...
..chickpeas and olives,
pickled carrots on here.
Oh, that's really lovely.
There we have it.
My braised artichoke with aquafaba and saffron mayonnaise,
with a salad.
Oh, Monica, that is just beautiful.