Name: Artichoke Bottoms
Ingredients: 1 large white onion, diced; 2 tablespoons butter; Salt, to taste; Pepper, to taste; Chopped parsley or chives, to taste; Fresh bread crumbs, for topping; Grated Parmesan cheese, for topping; Olive oil, for drizzling

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Artichoke Bottoms

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the artichoke bottoms as directed in the previous recipe.
Soak the diced onion in lukewarm water for 2 minutes, then rinse in cold water.
Dry the onion pieces with a napkin.
In a saucepan, melt the butter and fry the onions until nicely browned.
Season the onions with salt, pepper, and chopped parsley or chives.
Let the onion mixture cool, then fill the artichoke bottoms with it.
Sprinkle fresh bread crumbs and grated Parmesan cheese on top.
Arrange the filled artichokes on a buttered pan and drizzle with olive oil.
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until lightly browned.
Serve with Soubise sauce.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,649 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,779 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,163 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, parsley, bread, parmesan cheese, olive):

Tomatofits better
Capsicumfits better
Spinachfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, parsley, bread, parmesan cheese, olive. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.