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Artichoke Bottoms

Artichoke bottoms are boiled artichokes served with oil, lemon juice, and a garnish of mayonnaise or vegetable salad.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Artichoke Bottoms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the artichokes

  1. Remove the leaves and hearts from the artichokes and trim the bases.

  2. Plunge the trimmed artichokes into acidulated water to prevent browning.

  3. Cook the artichokes as you would Jerusalem artichokes and let them cool in their cooking liquid.

  4. Drain the artichokes well, dry them, and place them in a pan.

Marinate and serve

  1. Marinate the artichokes in oil and lemon juice for 20 minutes.

  2. Garnish with mayonnaise, purée macédoine, or a vegetable salad.

  3. Serve on a hors d'oeuvre dish with a garnish of parsley.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Artichoke + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together636 recipes

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

  3. Artichoke + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together524 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Little artichokes
Provide the tender edible bases that form the main body of the dish.
Oil
Adds richness and carries flavour while the artichokes marinate.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the artichokes and complements the marinade.
Mayonnaise or other purée macédoine or vegetable salad
Adds creaminess and moisture as the topping that completes each bottom.

The step that matters

Plunge the trimmed artichokes into acidulated water. Cut artichoke surfaces oxidise quickly and turn brown. An acidulated water bath slows this reaction, keeping the bottoms pale and attractive until they are cooked.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, lemon. 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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