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Garniture of Artichoke Bottoms

A stew of artichoke bottoms cooked with bacon, butter, wine, and herbs, served as a garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Garniture of Artichoke Bottoms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the leaves and choke from the artichokes and rub the bottoms with lemon juice.

  2. Soak the artichoke bottoms in water.

  3. Scald the artichokes in boiling water mixed with vinegar.

Stew and serve

  1. In a stewpan, combine the artichokes, bacon, lemon juice, butter, salt, sweet herbs, white wine, and enough water to cover.

  2. Stew the artichokes for 1.5 hours, placing them on a hot hearth covered with hot ashes until done.

  3. Strain and serve the artichokes whole as a garnish.

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. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Vinegar + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Artichoke + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together206 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the stewed artichokes.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the stewing liquid.
Bacon
Releases fat and smoky flavour into the stewing liquid.
Lemon juice
Acidity slows browning of the cut artichoke flesh and brightens the dish.

The step that matters

Stewing over hot ashes for 1.5 hours. Artichoke bottoms need long, gentle, even heat to become tender throughout. Too little time leaves them firm, while overheating can break them down or dry the liquid, so the cook should check doneness rather than rely on the clock alone.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, vinegar, butter, white wine):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Plumfits about as well
  3. Grapefits less well
  4. Apricotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, vinegar, butter, white wine. 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.

More artichoke bottoms recipes

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