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Artichoke Soup

A creamy soup of stewed artichokes, veal broth, almonds, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Artichoke Soup

Why it works: Artichoke and almond share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 44 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Artichoke Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the artichokes

  1. Clean the bottoms from the leaves and chokes of the artichokes and soak them in milk for 1 hour.

  2. Stew the soaked artichokes gently with butter and flour until tender.

  3. Remove the artichokes, mash them, and rub through a fine sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Simmer the mashed artichokes over low heat with young onions, thyme, and parsley.

  2. In a mortar, pound the almonds, egg yolks, and sugar together.

  3. Add the almond mixture to the veal broth and season with salt and cayenne pepper.

  4. Heat the mixture for a few minutes before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together44 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Artichoke + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together466 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Artichokes
Form the main body of the soup once stewed, mashed and sieved into a smooth purée.
Butter
Enriches the stewed artichokes and carries flavour during gentle cooking.
Flour
Thickens the artichokes as they stew, helping the purée hold body.
Veal broth
Forms the liquid base of the soup that the artichoke and almond mixture is combined with.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help thicken the soup when combined with the almond mixture.
Blanched sweet almonds
Pounded into a paste that adds body, richness and a mild nutty flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the almond and egg yolk mixture to the broth. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if the mixture gets too hot, so it should be heated gently for only a few minutes to keep the soup smooth and thickened.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, milk, butter, flour, veal, egg, sugar):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Pistachiofits less well
  4. Lentilsfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, milk, butter, flour, veal, egg, sugar. 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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