Why it works: Artichoke and butter work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 893 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓
To Boil Artichokes
Ingredients
Directions
Soak and wash the artichokes thoroughly.
Cut off the stems close and trim a few lower leaves.
Clip the points of all the leaves.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a fast boil and add baking soda.
Place the artichokes in the boiling water with the stalk-ends uppermost.
Boil young artichokes for 30 to 45 minutes and full-grown ones for 1 to 2 hours.
Check if done by pulling out the leaves easily.
Serve with melted butter.
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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Artichoke + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together893 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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