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Artichokes Preserved Whole

Whole artichokes are preserved by parboiling, lemon treatment, and hot water bath in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Artichoke and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 636 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Artichokes Preserved Whole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Select fleshy and sound artichokes.

  2. Cut off the stem and trim the hard leaves.

  3. Remove the top part and scoop out the fibrous center.

  4. Parboil the artichokes in water with a little vinegar for five minutes.

  5. Immerse the artichokes in cold water.

  6. Rub the bottoms with lemon.

Pack and process

  1. Place five artichokes in each tin box.

  2. Cover with cold boiled water and add the juice of two lemons.

  3. Seal the boxes.

  4. Boil them in a hot water bath for two hours.

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 + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together636 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Artichoke + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together381 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vinegar + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh artichokes
Provide the tender edible flesh that the preserving process softens and keeps intact.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the parboiling water, helping keep the artichokes pale and firm.
Lemon
Adds acidity that helps prevent browning of the cut artichoke surfaces.

The step that matters

Seal the boxes before the water bath. A tight seal keeps the packing liquid and air out during heating, so the contents stay protected from spoilage. A loose seal can let in microbes and cause the preserve to fail.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, vinegar. 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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