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Cardoons Au Jus

Cardoons served in stock with marrow, bread, and brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cardoons Au Jus

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Open the tin of cardoons and drain the liquor.

  2. Place the cardoons in a stewpan and cover with well-flavoured stock.

  3. Heat on the stove until warmed through.

  4. Soak the marrow in cold salted water for 1 hour, then replace with fresh salted water.

  5. Boil the water, then remove from heat and let the marrow sit until needed.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fry sippets of bread in butter.

  2. Cut the marrow and place a piece on each sippet.

  3. Arrange the sippets on a dish, pour reduced brown sauce in the center, and lay the cardoons on top.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Cardoon + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cardoon + saucetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together48 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Bread + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,934 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Cardoons
Provide the main vegetable body and tender texture of the dish.
Marrow
Adds rich, fatty flavour and a soft, melting texture.
Butter
Browns the bread sippets and adds richness and aroma.
Brown sauce
Adds deep savoury flavour and moisture to the dish.

The step that matters

Soaking and poaching the marrow. Soaking draws out blood and impurities so the marrow stays clean in flavour, and holding it just below a boil keeps it tender rather than tough or breaking apart.

“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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