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Scolloped Artichokes

A baked dish of mashed artichokes mixed with thick white sauce, seasoned with salt and pepper, topped with bread crumbs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Scolloped Artichokes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the artichokes until soft, then mash until smooth.

  2. Season the mashed artichokes with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Mix in thick white sauce until creamy.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a small fireproof dish and scatter seasoned bread crumbs over it.

  2. Fill the dish with the mashed artichokes and cover with more bread crumbs.

  3. Pour melted butter over the top and bake at 400°F (200°C) until browned.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Artichoke + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Artichokes
Form the soft, mashed body of the dish, giving it its main bulk and flavor.
Thick white sauce
Adds moisture and creaminess, binding the mashed artichokes into a smooth filling.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown in the oven.
Fine dry bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on top and absorb excess moisture from the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until browned. Browning comes from Maillard reactions at the surface, which need dry heat and time. Stopping early leaves the top pale and the filling underheated, while over-baking dries it out.

“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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