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Fried Artichoke Bottoms, Villeroi Style

Fried artichoke bottoms coated in breadcrumbs and fried, served with fried parsley garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Artichoke and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 524 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Fried Artichoke Bottoms, Villeroi Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the artichokes as in a previous recipe.

  2. Dip the dried artichokes in cool Villeroi sauce and place on a plate in a cool place to let the sauce adhere.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll the artichokes in fresh bread crumbs, then dip in beaten eggs, and roll in bread crumbs again.

  2. Fry in clarified butter or lard until golden brown.

  3. Serve garnished with fried parsley.

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.

  1. Artichoke + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together524 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Artichoke + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together175 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Artichokes
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender inside while the coating crisps outside.
Villeroi sauce
Thick sauce that clings to the artichokes and sets into a binding layer before frying.
Fresh bread crumbs
Create a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.
Eggs
Bind the bread crumb coating so it adheres firmly during frying.

The step that matters

Let the Villeroi sauce adhere before coating. Letting the cool sauce rest lets it set and firm up on the artichokes. If the coating is applied too soon, the sauce can slide off, leaving bare spots that let the crumbs fall away or the bottoms soak up fat.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, sauce, bread, egg, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, sauce, bread, egg, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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