Why it works: Cardoon and watercress share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Stewed Cardoons
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cardoons
Remove the outer skin from the cardoon heads and wash them.
Scald the cardoons in boiling water.
Stew
Place the cardoons in a stew pan and add broth to cover them.
Boil until three-quarters cooked and the liquid is almost reduced.
Add a small amount of bechamel sauce (or cullis) and stew gently until fully cooked.
Serve
Serve with fried bread and stewed watercresses arranged around the dish, with cardoons in the center.
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.
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Cardoon + watercresstop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Cardoon + breadtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Bread + watercresstop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together307 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Cardoon + saucetop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together48 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Sauce + watercresstop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together295 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
- Form the main body of the dish and absorb the flavour of the broth as they stew.
- Broth
- Provides the cooking liquid that softens the cardoons and forms the base of the stew.
- Bechamel sauce
- Adds creaminess and body to the stewed liquid as it finishes cooking.
The step that matters
Boil until three-quarters cooked and the liquid is almost reduced. Boiling down the broth concentrates its flavour, while stopping before full reduction leaves enough liquid for the final gentle stew. Overreducing can leave the cardoons dry or scorched once the sauce is added.
“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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