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Artichokes

A pickled artichoke recipe using vinegar, mace, ginger, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Artichokes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil young artichokes in strong salt water for 2-3 minutes.

  2. Drain them on a hair sieve and let them cool.

Pickle

  1. Place the cooled artichokes in narrow-topped jars.

  2. Cover the artichokes with white-wine vinegar.

  3. Boil the vinegar with mace, ginger, and nutmeg.

  4. Pour the hot vinegar over the artichokes and seal the jars tightly.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Artichoke + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together156 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Mace + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Wine + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,493 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Young artichokes
Main vegetable; brief boiling softens them so they take up the pickling liquid.
White-wine vinegar
Acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the artichokes in the jar.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour to the pickling vinegar.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, sweet aroma that rounds out the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Pour the hot vinegar and seal the jars tightly. Hot vinegar poured over the artichokes helps drive out air, and a tight seal lets a partial vacuum form as the jar cools. This helps keep air away from the food while it pickles.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, wine, vinegar, ginger, nutmeg. 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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