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Artichokes, French, Plain Boiled

Boiled artichokes seasoned with salt, pepper, savory herbs, served with optional butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Artichokes, French, Plain Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the artichokes upside down in salted water to remove insects.

  2. Trim the ends of the leaves and stalk, removing hard leaves from the bottom.

Boil

  1. Boil the artichokes in a saucepan of water until nearly covered.

  2. Add salt, pepper, and savory herbs to the boiling water.

  3. Boil until tender, checking doneness by pulling out a leaf.

  4. Drain upside down to remove excess water.

Serve

  1. Serve with a sauce like butter sauce or sauce Allemande.

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 + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Artichoke + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together893 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 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
Main vegetable; the edible leaves and heart are the dish itself.
Savory herbs
Add aroma to the cooking water, flavouring the artichokes as they simmer.
Butter
Adds richness and fat in the optional butter sauce served alongside.

The step that matters

Boil until tender. Artichokes are done when a leaf pulls out easily and the base is tender. Undercooking leaves them firm and fibrous, while overcooking turns them mushy and dull in flavour.

“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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