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Pickled Artichokes

Pickled artichokes preserved in a vinegar brine with 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 ↓

Pickled Artichokes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the artichokes

  1. Boil the artichokes in strong salt water for 2-3 minutes.

  2. Drain the artichokes on a sieve and let them cool.

  3. Pack the cooled artichokes into narrow-topped jars.

Pickle and store

  1. Boil enough white wine vinegar to cover the artichokes with 2 blades of mace, some root ginger, and grated nutmeg.

  2. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the artichokes, seal the jars, and store for later use.

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. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Artichoke + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together206 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Artichokes
The main vegetable, which softens slightly in the brief boil and takes on the pickling flavour.
White wine vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the artichokes and gives the pickle its sharp taste.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot vinegar over the artichokes. The vinegar must be hot and cover the artichokes fully so that no part is left exposed to air, which helps the pickle keep and stay evenly flavoured.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, white 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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