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A French Mode of Cooking Artichokes

Boiled artichokes seasoned with salt, pepper, herbs, butter, and optional cinder for color.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Artichoke and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,170 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

A French Mode of Cooking Artichokes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the ends of the leaves and the stems of the artichokes.

Cook

  1. Place the artichokes in boiling water with salt, pepper, herbs, and butter.

  2. Add the cinder in a muslin bag to the boiling water to keep them green.

  3. Boil quickly until tender, keeping the lid off the saucepan.

  4. Check tenderness: when the leaves come out easily, the artichokes are cooked.

Serve

  1. Serve with plain melted butter.

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. Artichoke + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Artichoke + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together893 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Artichokes
Form the main body of the dish, so they should be trimmed and cooked until tender.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded, savoury flavour to the cooking water and the serving sauce.
Savory herbs
Add a herbal, aromatic flavour to the boiling water.

The step that matters

Boil quickly until tender, with the lid off. Keeping the lid off lets volatile compounds escape and keeps the cooking vigorous, so the artichokes cook evenly and stay a fresh green colour rather than turning dull. Testing by pulling a leaf checks doneness; overcooking makes them mushy and waterlogged.

“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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