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Artichokes a I’ltalienne

A stewed dish of artichokes cooked in butter or olive oil with stock, vinegar, garlic, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Artichoke and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 600 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Artichokes a I’ltalienne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the artichokes

  1. Pare the artichokes with a sharp knife, halve them, and remove the choke. Place them in water immediately to prevent discoloration.

  2. Parboil the artichokes in salted water for 5 minutes.

Stew

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter or heat the olive oil.

  2. Arrange the artichokes neatly in the pan.

  3. Add the stock, vinegar, salt, pepper, and garlic.

  4. Stew gently for 45 minutes.

  5. Thicken the sauce with a little flour and pour it around the artichokes when serving.

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. Artichoke + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together600 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Artichoke + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together175 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Artichokes
Provide the main body of the dish, becoming tender during parboiling and stewing.
Butter or olive oil
Carries fat into the pan and adds richness to the stewed sauce.
Stock
Forms the liquid that gently cooks the artichokes and becomes the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the stewed sauce.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the stock into a sauce that coats the artichokes.

The step that matters

Place artichokes in water immediately after cutting. Cut artichoke flesh oxidizes and browns quickly on exposure to air. Submerging it in water right after paring slows discoloration, keeping the artichokes pale and appealing.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, butter, vinegar, pepper, garlic):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, butter, vinegar, pepper, garlic. 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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