Name: To Dry and Pickle Artichoke Bottoms
Ingredients: artichokes; coarse sea salt; water; melted mutton suet; butter; flour; mushroom ketchup; pepper

Why it works: Artichoke and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 466 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Dry and Pickle Artichoke Bottoms

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Half boil the artichokes, strip off the leaves, and remove the choke.
Place the bottoms in small jars and cover them with a cold boiled brine of salt and water.
Pour melted mutton suet on top to exclude air and tie a bladder over the jars.
To dry, boil the bottoms as for eating, remove the leaves and choke, and dry them on dishes in a 300°F (150°C) oven.
Store the dried bottoms in paper bags.
When ready to use, soak the bottoms in warm water for 2 to 3 hours.
Boil them plain or stew in gravy with mushroom ketchup, pepper, and salt, thickened with butter rolled in flour.

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.

Artichoke + flourtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together466 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Artichoke + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together447 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Artichoke + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,170 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,580 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).