Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Jerusalem Artichokes a Tltalienne
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash and peel the artichokes, shaping them like small pears of even sizes.
Butter a stewpan with 2 ounces of butter and arrange the artichokes in circles.
Cook
Sprinkle with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and lemon juice.
Pour in ½ cup of consommé, cover, and simmer gently for 30 minutes, basting occasionally.
Just before serving, roll the artichokes in the consommé.
Serve
Serve with Italian sauce around them.
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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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Jerusalem artichoke + nutmegtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together48 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together11,318 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
-
Jerusalem artichoke + lemontop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together72 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together13,015 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Jerusalem artichokes
- Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and mild when simmered.
- Consommé
- Supplies liquid for gentle simmering and flavours the artichokes as they cook.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps coat the artichokes as they cook in the pan.
The step that matters
Simmering with the lid on. Gentle simmering with the pan covered cooks the artichokes through in their own steam and liquid. Boiling hard can break the pieces apart and make them watery, so basting keeps them moist.
Swap the jerusalem artichoke
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, nutmeg, lemon, sauce):
- Shallotfits about as well
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Jerusalem artichokethe original
- Spinachfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, nutmeg, lemon, 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.
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