Name: Artichokes with Butter Sauce
Ingredients: Artichokes; Butter; Salt; Pepper

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 ↓

Artichokes with Butter Sauce

Ingredients

Artichokes
Butter
Salt
Pepper

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the artichokes by trimming the stems and removing the tough outer leaves.
Boil the artichokes in salted water until tender, about 20-30 minutes.
In a saucepan, melt butter and season with salt and pepper.
Serve the artichokes warm, drizzled with the butter sauce.

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.

Artichoke + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,170 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Artichoke + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together893 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

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