Name: Bound the Table
Ingredients: one when you know; quarter neatly; two eggs beaten up; pepper; salt; nutmeg

Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Bound the Table

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the artichokes

Cut off the stalk of the artichoke close.
Turn the artichoke bottom upwards and cut it in four, six, or eight quarters, as you would an orange.
Take each quarter and remove with a knife the embryo stamens which are at the core.
Cut off all the leaves, leaving only an eighth of an inch of the outside one, slanting the cut as the leaves approach the core.
Pare the outside of each quarter neatly.
Put each quarter as it is done into a basin of cold water with the juice of a lemon squeezed in it.

Boil and cool

Take the artichokes out of the basin and throw them into a saucepan full of boiling water with salt and the juice of half a lemon.
When nearly cooked, say in fifteen or twenty minutes, drain them and put them back into the basin of cold water and lemon juice.
Ten minutes before serving, drain and dry the artichokes in a cloth.

Make the sauce and serve

Flour or dip each piece in batter, fry it a light colour, and serve alone or with other fried things.
Make a sauce with flour, butter, water, pepper, and salt; toss the pieces of artichoke in it till warmed.
Just before sending to table, add the yolks of one or two eggs beaten up with the juice of a lemon.
Fry some chopped onions in butter, put in the pieces of artichoke, and toss them in the saucepan for ten minutes.
Serve with the juice of a lemon, adding a little grated nutmeg, and salt and pepper if necessary.

Bake with crumbs

Dispose the pieces of artichoke on a well-buttered silver dish.
Strew plentifully over them a mixture of bread crumbs and finely-minced mushrooms and parsley, with a very little chopped shallot or garlic.
Add pepper and salt, and a little more butter, and put the dish into the oven for ten minutes.
Brown the top with a salamander, and serve.
Oil may be used instead of butter.

Preserve for garnitures

To preserve artichokes for garnitures, trim them, boil for five or ten minutes only, drain and dry them in a cloth.
String the pieces on twine and hang them up in a free current of air to dry, without touching each other.
When thoroughly dry, put them away and keep them like dried mushrooms in jars or paper bags.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

96Calories

7 gProtein

6 gFat

3 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 4 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Nutmeg	1 tsp ground (2.2g)	12
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Chevalley de Rivaz, Victor. 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. See the original page.

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.

Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together24,744 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together50,580 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Eggs: Yolks beaten with lemon juice thicken the sauce and add richness when added off the heat.
Butter (in the method): Adds fat and flavour and helps the pieces brown when baked or fried.
Flour (in the method): Thickens the sauce and forms a coating that helps batter and fried pieces brown.
Lemon (in the method): Its acidity brightens the flavour and helps keep the artichoke pieces pale in water.