Name: French Artichokes
Ingredients: artichokes; cold water; lemon juice; lemon slices; coarse sea salt; Hollandaise sauce

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 ↓

French Artichokes

Ingredients

Directions

Wash the artichokes in cold water.
Trim the top and bottom so they stand upright.
Soak them in cold water with lemon juice and lemon slices for 2 hours.
Boil in hot salted water for 20 minutes.
Serve with Hollandaise 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 + lemontop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together636 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Artichoke + saucetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together462 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Lemon + saucetop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,598 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).