Skip to main content
Main

Artichoke Bottoms, with Fine Herbs

Artichoke bottoms stuffed with fine herbs, bread crumbs, and mushrooms, baked with butter and brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Artichoke Bottoms, with Fine Herbs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Prepare 12 artichokes as described in recipe No. 35.

  2. Stuff the artichokes with cooked fine herbs, fresh bread crumbs, and chopped fresh mushrooms.

  3. Arrange them in a deep flat saucepan, placing a small piece of butter in each artichoke.

  4. Moisten the artichokes with light thickened brown gravy.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven, basting frequently with the gravy.

  2. When nicely browned, serve with the gravy.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

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

  4. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Artichoke + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together175 recipes

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

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, cooked gently until tender enough to eat.
Fresh bread crumbs
Absorb the gravy and butter, giving the stuffing a soft, moist texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps the stuffing and artichokes brown.
Light thickened brown gravy
Provides moisture during baking and, when basted, helps the surface brown.
Chopped fresh mushrooms
Add savory, earthy flavor and moisture to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Basting with gravy during baking. Basting keeps the stuffing and artichoke surfaces moist while the heat works, so they do not dry out before the surface browns.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipes