Skip to main content
Main

Artichoke Pickle

Pickled artichokes preserved in salt, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Artichoke Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the artichokes

  1. Boil the artichokes until soft.

  2. Remove the chokes.

  3. Immerse them in salt and water for 1 hour.

  4. Drain the artichokes.

Pickle and bottle

  1. Layer them in wide-mouthed glass bottles.

  2. Sprinkle each layer with powdered nutmeg and mace.

  3. Pour in the white wine vinegar.

  4. Bottle the mixture.

  5. Cork securely.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Artichoke + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together206 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Mace + white winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,329 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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 of the pickle, becoming tender after boiling and absorbing the brine and vinegar.
White wine vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the artichokes and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of and seasons the artichokes during the soak, firming their texture.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

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

You might also like

Artichoke SoupArtichoke Soup55 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes