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Artichoke Puree, Foe Gaenituee

A creamy artichoke puree made with butter, cream sauce, double cream, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Artichoke and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 156 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Artichoke Puree, Foe Gaenituee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the artichokes

  1. Prepare the artichokes as in recipe No. 35.

  2. Cook the artichokes, then drain them.

Make the puree

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and toss the artichokes lightly over the heat.

  2. Add the cream sauce or Allemande sauce, and season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and sugar.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

  4. Transfer the puree to a flat saucepan and stir in the double cream.

  5. Reduce the puree to the desired consistency.

Hold and serve

  1. Place the puree in a Bain-Marie saucepan with a little butter on top to prevent a crust.

  2. Keep warm in a hot water bath until ready to serve.

  3. Before serving, add a piece of butter and stir until melted.

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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together156 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Artichoke + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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 puree, giving its flavour and texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel, and helps coat the artichokes as they warm.
Cream sauce or allemande sauce
Adds body and moisture, binding the puree into a smooth, spoonable mixture.
Double cream
Adds fat and richness, smoothing the texture and softening the finished puree.

The step that matters

Reduce the puree to the desired consistency. Cooking off excess liquid thickens the puree. If it is under-reduced it will be thin and watery, and if over-reduced it can become stiff and pasty, so check texture as it cooks.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, butter, cream, pepper, sugar):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, butter, cream, pepper, sugar. 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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