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
Strip off the coarse outer leaves and cut off the stalks of the artichokes.
Wash them in plenty of cold water and boil them tops down in salted water for 2 to 3 hours.
Keep the boil steady, adding boiling water as needed, and float a plate over them to keep them submerged.
Check if a leaf pulls out easily to determine if they are done.
Drain the artichokes and serve with melted butter in small cups or a sauceboat.
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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