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To Boil Artichokes

A simple boiled artichoke dish seasoned with salt and served with melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Artichoke and butter work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 893 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

To Boil Artichokes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak and wash the artichokes thoroughly.

  2. Cut off the stems close to the base and trim a few lower leaves.

  3. Clip the points of all the leaves.

Boil and serve

  1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a fast boil and add baking soda if desired.

  2. Place the artichokes in the boiling water with the stalk-ends facing up.

  3. Boil young artichokes for 30 to 45 minutes, and older ones for 1 to 2 hours, until the leaves can be easily pulled out.

  4. Serve with melted butter.

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 + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together893 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Artichokes
Main vegetable; its tender leaves and heart are the part eaten after boiling.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, offsetting the artichoke's mild, slightly bitter flavour.
Baking soda
Raises the water's pH, which can help keep the leaves a brighter green while boiling.

The step that matters

Judging when the artichokes are done. Young and older artichokes need very different boiling times, so the leaves should be tested by pulling one out rather than relying on the clock alone. Undercooked leaves stay tough and fibrous, while overcooking makes the heart mushy and the leaves limp.

“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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