Name: Cardoons with Marrow
Ingredients: 6 white Cardoon stems, cut into 4-inch pieces; Juice of 5 lemons; Coarse sea salt; Black pepper; 1 pinch of sugar; Broth to cover Cardoons; Thin slices of fat pork; Reduced Espagnole sauce; Small patties or buttered toast filled with scallops of marrow cooked with fine herbs

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Cardoons with Marrow

Ingredients

6 white Cardoon stems, cut into 4-inch pieces
Juice of 5 lemons
Coarse sea salt
Black pepper
1 pinch of sugar
Broth to cover Cardoons
Thin slices of fat pork
Reduced Espagnole sauce
Small patties or buttered toast filled with scallops of marrow cooked with fine herbs

Directions

Prepare

Soak Cardoon pieces in cold, acidulated water.
Boil water with the juice of 5 lemons.
Parboil Cardoons until the outer surface peels off easily.
Peel and trim Cardoons, then soak in cold water and drain.

Braise

Line a deep flat saucepan with slices of fat pork and add Cardoons.
Season with salt, pepper, and sugar, then moisten with broth to cover.
Add juice of 2 lemons and cover with thin slices of fat pork.
Cover and boil, then cook slowly until done.

Serve

Drain Cardoons and serve with reduced Espagnole sauce and garnish with patties or toast.

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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Cardoon + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together33 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Sauce + scalloptop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together130 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,147 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Cardoon + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together31 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Cardoon stems: Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender through slow cooking.
Lemon juice: Acidulates the water to keep the cardoon pale and adds a bright sour note.
Fat pork: Lines and covers the pan, adding moisture and savory richness as the cardoons cook.
Broth: Provides the liquid that gently cooks the cardoons and carries savory flavor.
Espagnole sauce: Adds a rich, glossy brown sauce that complements the mild, tender cardoons.

The step that matters

Parboil until the outer surface peels off easily. Cardoon stalks have fibrous outer strings that stay tough if not parboiled enough. Too short a parboil leaves stringy pieces, while overcooking makes the stalks mushy. Acidulated water helps keep the cut surfaces pale.

“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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Cardoons with Marrow