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To Fry Artichokes

Fried artichokes are prepared by boiling, battering, and frying them, then served with salt and fried parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Artichoke and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 524 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

To Fry Artichokes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the artichokes.

  2. Trim them, cutting away the outer leaves and stem.

  3. Divide them in two.

  4. Boil for 15 to 20 minutes.

  5. Drain.

  6. Remove the chokes.

Fry

  1. Dip the artichokes in French batter.

  2. Fry in butter until bright brown.

  3. Drain.

  4. Sprinkle with salt.

Serve

  1. Serve on a napkin surrounded by fried parsley.

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

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

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  3. 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
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender after boiling and then crisp-coated when fried.
French batter
Forms a coating that fries into a crisp, golden shell around the artichoke.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Fry in butter until bright brown. Butter browns quickly because its milk solids darken at high heat, so it can burn before the batter crisps. Frying at a steady heat and stopping at bright brown keeps the coating golden rather than bitter.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, butter. 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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