Name: Artichoke Bottoms
Ingredients: dried or pickled artichoke bottoms; ½ cup cream; 4 tablespoons fresh butter; salt to taste; white wine to taste

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Artichoke Bottoms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Soak dried artichokes in warm water for 3-4 hours, changing the water 2-3 times.

Make and serve

In a saucepan, combine cream and butter, stirring until the butter melts.
Add the artichokes to the saucepan.
Heat the mixture until hot.
Serve immediately.

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.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,083 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Artichoke + white winetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together206 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Artichoke + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together893 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Cream + white winetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,760 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Artichoke bottoms: Form the base of the dish and absorb the creamy butter sauce.
Cream: Adds richness and moisture to the sauce.
Butter: Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture.

“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.