Why it works: Artichoke and shallot share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 97 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓
Pickled Artichoke
Ingredients
Directions
Boil and simmer the artichokes until nearly tender.
Remove the leaves and choke, keeping the bottom part.
Soak the artichoke bottoms in a salt brine for 48 hours.
Strain off the brine and place the artichokes in a jar.
Heat vinegar to boiling and season with pepper, salt, shallots, and mace.
Pour the seasoned vinegar over the artichokes in the jar.
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 + shallottop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together97 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Artichoke + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,170 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,898 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Vinegar + shallottop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,374 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,814 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, vinegar, pepper, shallot):
- Capersfits better
- Tarragonfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, vinegar, pepper, shallot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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