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Artichoke Bottoms with French Beans

A dish of boiled artichoke bottoms served with French beans tossed in butter, lemon juice, and white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Artichoke and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 154 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Artichoke Bottoms with French Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the artichokes

  1. Partially boil the artichoke bottoms.

  2. Arrange the bottoms in a flat stewpan and moisten with white broth, lemon juice, and white wine to cover.

  3. Cover with buttered paper and cook gently.

Cook the beans

  1. Boil the French beans in salted water until done, then drain.

  2. In a stewpan, melt butter, season the beans, and toss until coated.

  3. Add lemon juice to the beans and pile them on a dish.

Serve

  1. Arrange the artichoke bottoms around the beans like shields.

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.

  1. Artichoke + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together154 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Artichoke + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together636 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Artichoke + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together206 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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 of the dish and carry the bean filling.
French beans
Provide the main vegetable bulk and a fresh, crisp-tender texture.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the beans take on a glossy, seasoned coating.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the liquid the artichokes simmer in.
Lemons
Add bright acidity that balances the rich butter and mild artichokes.

The step that matters

Cook the artichoke bottoms gently under buttered paper. Gentle heat in a covered, moist pan lets the artichokes become tender all the way through without breaking apart or drying out, while the buttered paper keeps the surface from drying and the liquid from evaporating too quickly.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, lemon, white wine, butter):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Chickpeafits about as well
  3. Almondfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, lemon, white wine, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

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