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To Pickle Artichokes

A method for pickling artichokes using salt, vinegar, mace, ginger, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Pickle Artichokes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the artichokes

  1. Gather artichokes as soon as they are formed.

  2. Boil them in a strong saltwater solution for 2–3 minutes.

  3. Drain them on a wire rack until cool.

  4. Place them in narrow-topped jars.

Pickle and seal

  1. Boil enough white-wine vinegar to cover the artichokes with 1–2 blades of mace, a few slices of ginger, and thinly sliced nutmeg.

  2. Pour the hot vinegar over the artichokes and seal the jars.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Mace + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Wine + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,493 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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 pickle, becoming tender after brief boiling and absorbing the vinegar flavour.
White-wine vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the artichokes and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavour.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note to the vinegar.
Mace
Adds a delicate, warm aroma that complements the nutmeg and ginger.

The step that matters

Boil them in strong saltwater for 2–3 minutes. Brief boiling in strong brine partly softens the artichokes and seasons them before pickling. Boiling too long makes them mushy, while skipping the brine leaves them bland and less firm in the finished jar.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, wine, vinegar, ginger, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, wine, vinegar, ginger, nutmeg. 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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