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To Fricassee Jerusalem Artichokes

A creamy fricassee of Jerusalem artichokes simmered in milk, water, and butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Jerusalem artichoke and nutmeg share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 48 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

To Fricassee Jerusalem Artichokes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and scrape or pare the Jerusalem artichokes.

  2. Boil them in milk and water until soft, about 15 to 30 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Remove the artichokes and stew them for a few minutes in the sauce.

  2. To make the sauce, roll the butter in flour and mix with cream or milk.

  3. Season the sauce with white pepper, salt, and grated nutmeg.

Serve

  1. Serve the artichokes plain boiled with melted butter poured over them.

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. Jerusalem artichoke + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together48 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Jerusalem artichoke + walnuttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Jerusalem artichoke + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together116 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Jerusalem artichokes
Form the main body of the dish, becoming soft and tender when boiled.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells with heat, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce and the melted topping.
Cream or milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and a smooth, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Mixing the butter and flour before adding the cream. Coating flour in butter lets it disperse evenly in the liquid. Added loose, flour clumps and leaves lumps, while heating the mixture swells its starch so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (jerusalem artichoke, milk, walnut, butter, flour, cream, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against jerusalem artichoke, milk, walnut, butter, flour, cream, 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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