Why it works: Artichoke and sauce work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 462 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Artichokes, Globe, Boiled
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash the artichokes in several rinses.
Cut off the stems and trim the leaves if necessary.
Boil and serve
Put them into boiling water, adding 1 teaspoon of salt for each quart of water.
If the water is hard or the artichokes are old, add a piece of baking soda the size of a Spanish nut.
Keep the saucepan uncovered and boil quickly for 25 to 30 minutes until tender.
Drain well and serve with Hollandaise sauce or oiled butter.
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.
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Artichoke + saucetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together462 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Globe artichokes
- The main vegetable; its tender fleshy bases and leaf bases are what the dish is served for.
- Baking soda (in the method)
- Optional addition for hard water or old artichokes, helping them soften and keep a bright green colour.
- Hollandaise sauce
- Rich, fatty sauce that adds richness and a tangy contrast to the mild, slightly bitter artichoke.
The step that matters
Boil uncovered and quickly until tender. Boiling vigorously with the pan uncovered lets volatile compounds escape, keeping the flavour and colour fresh. Cooking too long turns the artichoke dull and mushy, so test for tenderness at 25 minutes.
“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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