Skip to main content
Main

To Dry Artichoke Bottoms

A method for drying and preserving artichoke bottoms for later use in ragouts or with cullis sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Artichoke and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 636 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

To Dry Artichoke Bottoms

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Cut off the stalks of the artichokes and boil them until the leaves and choke can be removed.

Dry and store

  1. Place the artichokes on a baking sheet in a 300°F (150°C) oven or hang them in a warm place to dry.

  2. Once dried, store them in paper bags.

Rehydrate and serve

  1. When ready to use, soak the artichokes in warm water and coarse sea salt until pliable.

  2. Trim the artichokes neatly and braise them in broth and lemon juice to keep them white.

  3. Cut them into pieces for ragout or serve them whole with cullis sauce.

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

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

  2. Artichoke + saucetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together462 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Lemon + saucetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,598 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

Large firm artichokes
Form the main body of the dish, becoming the tender bottoms once dried and rehydrated.
Broth
Braises the artichokes, adding savoury flavour as they soften.
Lemon juice
Acidity helps keep the artichokes pale white during braising.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the soaking liquid, helping the dried artichokes absorb moisture and season evenly.

The step that matters

Drying the artichokes. Drying removes moisture so the artichokes can be stored for a long time. If they dry unevenly or too quickly, they may toughen or darken. Slow, gentle heat at a low temperature helps them dry evenly before storage.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, sauce. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesArtichoke SoupArtichoke Soup55 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes