Name: Artichoke Bottoms
Ingredients: dried or pickled artichoke bottoms; warm water; ½ cup cream; large piece of fresh butter

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Artichoke Bottoms

Ingredients

dried or pickled artichoke bottoms
warm water
½ cup cream
large piece of fresh butter

Directions

Prepare

If using dried artichokes, soak them in warm water for 3-4 hours, changing the water 2-3 times.

Make the sauce and serve

In a saucepan, combine cream and butter, stirring until the butter melts.
Add the artichokes to the saucepan and heat until hot.
Serve the artichokes on a dish.

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.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Artichoke + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together893 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together335 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Artichoke bottoms: Form the tender base that absorbs the cream and butter as it heats.
Cream: Adds moisture and richness, forming a smooth coating around the artichokes.
Butter: Adds fat and rich flavor, helping the cream sauce turn silky when melted.

“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.