Name: Artichokes, French, Plain Boiled
Ingredients: artichokes; coarse sea salt; pepper; savoury herbs; butter

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, French, Plain Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the artichokes upside down in well salted water to remove insects.
Trim the ends of the leaves and stalk, removing hard leaves from the bottom.
Place the artichokes in a saucepan of boiling water, nearly covering them.
Add salt, pepper, and a spoonful of savoury herbs to the water.
Boil until tender, checking doneness by pulling out a leaf; it should come out easily.
Drain upside down to remove excess water.
Serve with a sauce like butter sauce, sauce Allemande, or Dutch sauce.

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).
Artichoke + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together893 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

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