Name: Artichokes
Ingredients: 3 lbs artichokes; 3 pints veal stock; 1½ pints additional stock; little cayenne pepper; coarse sea salt; 1 pint boiling cream

Why it works: Artichoke and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,170 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Artichokes

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the artichokes in water for 10 minutes.
In a separate pot, simmer the veal stock for 15 to 20 minutes.
Add the additional stock, cayenne, and salt, and cook for 2 to 3 minutes.
Stir in the boiling cream before serving.

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.

Artichoke + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,170 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,049 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Artichoke + creamtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together335 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Artichoke + vealtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together272 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together21,449 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Artichokes: Form the main body of the dish, with tender flesh that takes on the savoury sauce.
Veal stock: Gives the sauce a savoury, meaty depth as it simmers and reduces.
Cream: Adds richness and a silky texture from its milk fat.

“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.