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Cardoons with Marrow

A dish of cardoon stems braised with lemon, broth, and fat pork, served with Espagnole sauce and marrow garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Cardoons with Marrow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cardoons

  1. Cut cardoon stems into 4‑inch lengths and place in a bowl of cold, acidulated water.

  2. In a saucepan, bring water to a boil and add the juice of five lemons.

  3. Add cardoons to the boiling water and parboil until the outer surface can be easily peeled off.

  4. Remove from heat, peel, and trim the cardoons, then place them in cold water to cool.

  5. Drain the cardoons on a napkin.

Braise and serve

  1. Prepare a deep flat saucepan lined with fine slices of fat pork.

  2. Place the cardoons in the saucepan, season with salt, pepper, and sugar, and moisten with broth to cover.

  3. Add the juice of two lemons and cover the cardoons with thin slices of fat pork.

  4. Cover and let them boil, then reduce heat and cook slowly until done.

  5. Drain the cardoons on a napkin, dish them up, and pour reduced Espagnole sauce over them.

  6. Garnish with small patties or buttered toast filled with scallops of marrow cooked with fine herbs before serving.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Cardoon + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together33 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Sauce + scalloptop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together130 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Cardoon + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together31 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Cardoon stems
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender through parboiling and slow cooking.
Lemon juice
Acidulates the water to keep the cardoons pale and adds a bright, sharp note.
Fat pork
Lines the pan and covers the cardoons, adding richness and moisture during slow cooking.
Broth
Provides the cooking liquid that gently braises the cardoons and carries flavour.
Espagnole sauce
Adds a rich, savoury brown sauce that coats the cooked cardoons when served.

The step that matters

Parboil in acidulated water. Cardoons discolour quickly when cut and exposed to air. Acidulated water with lemon juice helps keep them pale, and parboiling softens the outer surface so it peels cleanly without tearing the flesh.

“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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