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Pickled Artichokes

Pickled artichokes preserved in salt water and spiced vinegar with horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Artichoke and horseradish share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pickled Artichokes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub off the outer skin of the artichokes with a coarse towel.

  2. Soak the artichokes in salt water for one day.

  3. Drain the artichokes and place them in jars.

Pickle

  1. Pour cold spiced vinegar over the artichokes.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon of horseradish to each jar.

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 + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together18 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Vinegar + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Artichokes
Main ingredient that becomes tender and absorbs the vinegar flavour as it pickles.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the artichokes and seasons them during the overnight soak.
Cold spiced vinegar
Acidity preserves the artichokes and gives them their sharp, tangy flavour.
Horseradish
Adds a sharp, pungent aroma and heat that complements the vinegar.

The step that matters

Soaking in salt water. The salt soak draws moisture out of the artichokes and firms their texture, so they can take up the vinegar evenly. Skipping or shortening the soak leaves them soft and watery in the jar.

Swap the horseradish

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Horseradishthe original

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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