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Artichokes

Artichokes preserved in vinegar with mace, ginger, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Artichokes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the artichokes

  1. Gather artichokes as soon as formed.

  2. Boil them for 2-3 minutes in salted water.

  3. Drain and let them cool.

Pickle and seal

  1. Place in narrow-topped jars and cover with white wine vinegar.

  2. Boil vinegar with mace, ginger, and thinly sliced nutmeg.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the artichokes and seal the jars tightly.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Artichoke + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together156 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  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

Artichokes
Provide the main vegetable; their tender flesh absorbs the vinegar flavour during pickling.
White wine vinegar
Supplies the acidity that preserves the artichokes and gives the pickle its sharp taste.

The step that matters

Pour the hot mixture over the artichokes and seal the jars tightly. Hot vinegar helps drive air out of the artichokes and jar, and a tight seal keeps air and microbes out, which supports keeping the pickles stable. Gaps in the seal let air in and spoil the batch.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, white wine, vinegar, ginger, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, white wine, vinegar, ginger, nutmeg. 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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