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Artichoke Puree

A smooth puree of cooked artichokes, onion, butter, stock, cornflour, milk, cream, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Artichoke Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the artichokes and onion into pieces.

  2. Fry the pieces in butter without browning.

Make the puree

  1. Add the white stock and salt, then cook until the artichokes are soft, about 1 to 2 hours.

  2. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

  3. Mix the cornflour with the milk and add to the puree, cooking for 10 minutes.

  4. Season with pepper and salt, then add the cream and reheat without boiling.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Artichoke + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together738 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Artichoke + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Artichokes
Form the main body of the puree, softening into a smooth pulp when cooked and sieved.
Butter
Fat that softens the onion and artichoke pieces gently, carrying flavour without browning.
White stock
Liquid that cooks the vegetables until soft and sets the puree's loose consistency.
Cornflour
Starch that thickens the puree when cooked, giving it body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel at the end.

The step that matters

Reheat without boiling. Once cream is added, boiling can cause it to separate or curdle and make the puree grainy, so it should be heated gently only until hot.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, butter, milk, cream, pepper):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, butter, milk, cream, pepper. 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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