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Jerusalem Artichokes

Boiled Jerusalem artichokes served with melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Jerusalem Artichokes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the artichokes and peel them quickly.

Boil

  1. Place the artichokes in a saucepan with cold water or a mixture of equal parts milk and water.

  2. Boil until tender, about 15 to 25 minutes.

  3. Add a little coarse sea salt halfway through cooking.

  4. Remove from water immediately once tender to prevent discoloration.

Serve

  1. Serve with melted butter.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Jerusalem artichoke + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together138 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Jerusalem artichoke + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together267 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl decanoate (grape, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Jerusalem artichokes
Provide the starchy, tender flesh that becomes the main body of the dish.
Milk
Cooking in milk and water can add richness and help keep the pale flesh from discoloring.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness to the cooked artichokes at serving.

The step that matters

Remove from water immediately once tender. Leaving Jerusalem artichokes in hot water after they are tender makes them soften too far and discolor. Lifting them out promptly keeps their texture and pale color.

Swap the jerusalem artichoke

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Jerusalem artichokethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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