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Pickled Artichokes

A preserved artichoke dish made by parboiling, brining, and storing in a sealed jar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Pickled Artichokes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the artichokes

  1. Remove the stems and hard leaves from the artichokes, cutting off the top part and trimming the remaining leaves close to the bottom.

  2. Scoop out the fibrous part carefully and place the artichokes in a pan of cold water with a little vinegar.

  3. Parboil the artichokes for five minutes, then immerse them in cold water.

  4. Trim the artichokes to be uniform and rub them with lemon.

Brine and store

  1. Arrange the artichokes in an earthen jar or barrel.

  2. Cover the artichokes with a brine made from water and coarse sea salt, ensuring they are fully submerged.

  3. After 24 hours, drain the brine, boil it again, skim off any impurities, and add more salt to restore the brine's strength.

  4. Seal the jar or barrel tightly.

Soak before using

  1. Before using, soak the artichokes in lukewarm water for 10 to 15 hours.

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 + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together381 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vinegar + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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, which is preserved by the brine and acid.
Vinegar
Acidity in the cooking water helps keep the artichokes pale and firm during parboiling.
Lemon
Its acidity helps prevent the cut artichoke surfaces from browning.
Coarse sea salt
Salt in the brine draws out moisture and preserves the artichokes during storage.

The step that matters

Brining and resalting the brine. Salt concentration must stay strong enough to preserve the artichokes and prevent spoilage. Boiling and skimming the brine removes impurities, and adding salt restores the strength lost as the brine works.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, vinegar):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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