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Cardoons

A stew of cardoons cooked with ox-kidney fat, lemon, garlic, and Spanish sauce, served with toast spread with ox-marrow.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Cardoons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cardoons

  1. Trim and cut cardoons into 5-6 inch pieces.

  2. Peel the edges and place in scalding water until the skin comes off easily.

  3. Plunge cardoons into cold water.

  4. Remove the peel.

  5. Keep cardoons in cold water.

Make the broth

  1. In a saucepan, combine ox-kidney fat, carrot slices, onion with cloves, lemon slices, garlic, bay leaves, parsley, and spring onions.

  2. Heat the saucepan without browning the ingredients.

  3. When the fat is nearly done, add flour and enough water to moisten.

  4. Season with salt.

  5. Boil for a few minutes, skimming frequently.

  6. Let the liquid settle.

  7. Pour off the clear liquid into another saucepan.

Cook and serve

  1. Add cardoons and two lemon slices.

  2. Boil for a few minutes.

  3. Cover the cardoons with greased paper and simmer gently for 3-4 hours.

  4. Remove cardoons.

  5. Place cardoons in another saucepan with a little rich stock.

  6. Simmer gently until they nearly fall apart.

  7. Transfer to a dish.

  8. Pour over reduced Spanish sauce mixed with butter.

  9. Garnish with toast spread with ox-marrow.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Cardoons
Form the main body of the stew and become tender through long, gentle simmering.
Ox-kidney fat
Adds richness and flavour to the broth and the finished stew.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so it coats the cardoons.
Lemon slices
Add acidity that brightens the broth and helps keep the cardoons pale.
Butter
Enriches the Spanish sauce with fat for a smooth, glossy finish.

The step that matters

Simmer the cardoons gently. Vigorous boiling breaks cardoon fibres unevenly and can make them mushy, so a gentle simmer over 3-4 hours lets them soften evenly and hold their shape.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cardoon, carrot, clove, lemon, garlic, parsley, flour):

  1. Kalefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cardoon, carrot, clove, lemon, garlic, parsley, flour. 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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