Skip to main content
Main

Jerusalem Artichokes Stewed

Stewed Jerusalem artichokes with consommé, butter, salt, flour, cream, served with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Jerusalem artichoke and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 116 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Jerusalem Artichokes Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare and cut the Jerusalem artichokes in half.

Cook

  1. Boil them in a little consommé until nearly done and the liquid is almost reduced.

  2. Add a small quantity of fresh butter, coarse sea salt, flour, and cream.

  3. Cook over a fire for five minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with fried bread around the dish.

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. Jerusalem artichoke + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together116 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Jerusalem artichoke + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together182 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Jerusalem artichokes
Provide the main body and starchy, mild flavour of the dish.
Consommé
Cooks the artichokes and reduces to a savoury liquid that flavours them.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the reduced liquid so it clings to the artichokes.
Cream
Adds richness and body, softening the sauce's texture.

The step that matters

Boil until nearly done and the liquid is almost reduced. Overcooking leaves the artichokes mushy and breaking down, while underreducing leaves a thin sauce. Stopping near the end lets the flour and cream finish the texture.

“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