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To Stew Cardoons

A stew of cardoons simmered in veal gravy, lemon juice, mushroom catsup, pepper, and coarse sea salt, thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

To Stew Cardoons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cardoons

  1. Wash the inside of the cardoons well.

  2. Boil them in salted water.

Make the stew

  1. In a pan, combine cardoons with veal gravy, lemon juice, mushroom catsup, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Thicken the mixture with flour and butter.

  3. Boil the whole mixture and serve hot.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Cardoon + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together33 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cardoon + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together24 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Inside of cardoons
The main vegetable; boiling softens its fibrous texture until tender.
Veal gravy
Provides the savory, meaty liquid that forms the body of the stew.
Flour
Its starch swells when boiled, thickening the liquid into a stew.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the thickened sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy and balances its flavor.
Mushroom catsup
Adds concentrated savory, umami depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with flour and butter. Flour must be fully mixed in and boiled so its starch swells evenly. Otherwise the stew can turn lumpy and taste raw and floury.

“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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