Name: Topinambours Rotis
Ingredients: 12 artichokes; 1 tablespoon butter or drippings; salt; pepper

Why it works: Artichoke and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,170 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Topinambours Rotis

Ingredients

12 artichokes
1 tablespoon butter or drippings
salt
pepper

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Peel and trim the artichokes.
Melt the butter or drippings in a fire-proof dish.

Roast and serve

Add the artichokes to the dish.
Season with salt and pepper.
Bake at 400 °F (200 °C) for 30 minutes, basting frequently, until browned.
Serve in the same dish.

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.

Artichoke + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,170 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Artichoke + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together893 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Artichokes: Form the main body, becoming tender and starchy as they cook through in the oven.
Butter or drippings: Adds fat that conducts oven heat to the surface, promoting browning and rich flavor.

The step that matters

Bake at 400 °F (200 °C) for 30 minutes, basting frequently, until browned. Basting keeps the surfaces coated in fat so they do not dry out. At this high heat, the fat helps the sugars and proteins on the surface brown through the Maillard reaction, so pieces should be turned or spooned over until golden.

“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.