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Artichoke Relish

A pickled relish of artichokes, onions, vinegar, spices, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Artichoke Relish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Thoroughly wash and clean the artichokes with a brush.

  2. Grind the artichokes and onions using the coarsest part of a meat chopper.

Cook and jar

  1. Mix all ingredients together in a pot.

  2. Cook the mixture for thirty minutes.

  3. If desired, add 1 cup of olive oil at the end.

  4. Seal the mixture in glass jars while hot.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Artichoke + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together116 recipes

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

  3. Turmeric + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Artichoke + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together41 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turmeric + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Artichokes
Form the bulk of the relish and give it its chunky, textured body.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the relish.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Onions
Add savoury depth and softness as they cook down into the mixture.
Mustard seed
Contributes a pungent, sharp flavour that stands up to the vinegar.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat that gives the relish its background warmth.

The step that matters

Seal the mixture in glass jars while hot.. Filling jars while the mixture is still hot helps drive air out of the jar and create a vacuum seal as it cools and contracts. Letting it cool first risks a weak seal and spoilage.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, pepper, vinegar, turmeric, sugar, mustard, celery):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, pepper, vinegar, turmeric, sugar, mustard, celery. 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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