Name: Salad of Jerusalem Artichokes
Ingredients: 1 pint cold boiled artichokes; 1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley; 1 tablespoon tarragon vinegar; 3 tablespoons olive oil; 1 teaspoon salt; a pinch of cayenne pepper

Why it works: Parsley and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Salad of Jerusalem Artichokes

Ingredients

1 pint cold boiled artichokes
1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley
1 tablespoon tarragon vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
a pinch of cayenne pepper

Directions

Slice the cold boiled artichokes.
Add the chopped parsley, tarragon vinegar, olive oil, salt, and cayenne pepper, then toss to combine.
Let the salad stand for 1 hour before serving.

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.

Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,563 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Artichoke + tarragontop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together60 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Artichoke + olivetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together745 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Artichoke + parsleytop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together524 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Artichokes: Provide the main body and texture of the salad.
Olive oil: Adds fat and carries flavour through the salad.
Tarragon vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, tarragon, vinegar, olive, pepper):

Capersfits better
Thymefits about as well
Parsleythe original
Basilfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, tarragon, vinegar, olive, pepper. 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.