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Beignets d’Artichauts

Fried artichoke slices coated in batter, served hot with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beignets d’Artichauts

Oven, in the book's wordsA sharp oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut cooked artichoke bottoms into slices.

  2. Season with oil, vinegar, coarse sea salt, pepper, and chopped parsley.

  3. Dip the seasoned artichoke slices in frying batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in hot fat until golden, then drain.

  2. Serve hot with a boat of tomato sauce.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Artichoke + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together524 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Artichoke + tomatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together354 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked artichoke bottoms
Provide the main tender filling that the batter encloses and the dish is built around.
Frying batter
Forms a crisp golden coating that seals in moisture while the beignets fry.
Hot fat
Cooks the batter quickly, driving browning and producing a crisp outer crust.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the artichoke.

The step that matters

Fry in hot fat until golden. If the fat is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisping. Too hot and the coating browns before the artichoke heats through. Steady heat gives a crisp, evenly cooked result.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, vinegar, pepper, parsley, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, vinegar, pepper, parsley, sauce. 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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