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Artichoke Bottoms, Spanish Style

Artichoke bottoms simmered in veal broth, white wine, lemon, and Espagnole sauce, finished with butter and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Artichoke and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 636 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Artichoke Bottoms, Spanish Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the artichokes

  1. Trim the artichokes as described in recipe No. 35.

  2. Place the trimmed artichokes in a deep flat saucepan lined with slices of fat pork.

  3. Cover the artichokes with veal broth, white wine, and lemon juice.

  4. Season the artichokes with salt and pepper.

  5. Cover the saucepan.

  6. Cook slowly until tender.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Remove the artichoke bottoms.

  2. Place them on a plate.

  3. Strain the gravy.

  4. Reduce the strained gravy over high heat.

  5. Add the Espagnole sauce and tomato sauce to the reduced gravy.

  6. Remove the gravy from heat.

  7. Stir in lemon juice, a piece of butter, and chopped parsley.

  8. Pour the sauce over the artichoke bottoms.

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 + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together636 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Artichoke + tomatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together354 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Pork + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 as they cook slowly in liquid.
Veal broth
Provides the cooking liquid and savory body for the gravy that becomes the sauce.
Espagnole sauce
Adds concentrated savory depth and body to the reduced gravy.
Butter
Enriches the finished sauce with fat for a smoother, rounder texture.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until tender. Gentle, covered cooking softens the artichoke bottoms evenly, while high heat would toughen or break them. The gravy is then reduced separately over high heat to concentrate its flavor and thicken it.

“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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