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Cardoons, with Essence of Ham

Cardoons cooked with white wine, broth, salt, pepper, sugar, and finished with brown sauce and ham essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,147 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Cardoons, with Essence of Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Parboil and clean the cardoons.

  2. In a flat saucepan, combine cardoons, white wine, and broth to cover.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and sugar.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook until moisture is reduced and cardoons are glazed.

  2. Transfer to a dish and pour over reduced brown sauce and essence of ham.

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. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Cardoon + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together31 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. White wine + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Cardoon + saucetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together48 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. White wine + saucetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together819 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cardoons
Main vegetable, becoming tender and glazed as its moisture cooks off.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that flavour the cardoons as they simmer.
Sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that helps the cardoons glaze and brown lightly.
Brown sauce
Provides a rich, savoury body to the finished dish.
Essence of ham
Adds concentrated savoury, meaty flavour to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Cook until moisture is reduced and cardoons are glazed. If the pan is left too wet, the cardoons stew rather than glaze. Reducing the liquid until it thickens and coats the vegetables concentrates flavour and gives a glossy finish.

“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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