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Artichokes Stewed in Gravy

A stew of artichokes cooked in gravy with mushroom ketchup, lemon juice, and a butter‑flour roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Artichoke and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 636 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Artichokes Stewed in Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Strip off the leaves from the artichokes and remove the chokes.

  2. Soak the artichokes in lukewarm water for three hours, changing the water three or four times.

Stew

  1. Place the artichokes in a saucepan with enough gravy to cover them.

  2. Add mushroom ketchup, lemon juice, and the butter rolled in flour.

  3. Stew gently until tender, about 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with the sauce poured over the artichokes.

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 + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together636 recipes

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

  2. Artichoke + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together466 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Artichoke + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together447 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Artichokes
Main vegetable; becomes tender during the gentle stew.
Butter rolled in flour
Flour thickens the gravy into a smooth sauce while butter adds richness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy and balances its savoury flavour.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury, umami depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Stew gently until tender. Boiling vigorously can break up the artichoke hearts and make the flour-thickened sauce separate or turn lumpy. A gentle simmer lets the artichokes soften evenly while the sauce stays smooth.

“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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