Why it works: Artichoke and tarragon share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 60 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Artichoke Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Wash the artichokes thoroughly, then pare and quarter them.
Serve with coarse sea salt, black pepper, vinegar, and olive oil if desired.
Alternatively, cook the artichokes in their skins in salted boiling water until tender.
Drain and let them cool, then peel and quarter.
Serve cold with French dressing, adding a few drops of tarragon vinegar for extra flavor.
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.
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Artichoke + tarragontop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together60 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Artichoke + olivetop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together745 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,399 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,547 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Olive + tarragontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,323 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the tarragon
The recipe marks tarragon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, pepper, vinegar, olive):
- Capersfits better
- Garlicfits about as well
- Tarragonthe original
- Thymefits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, pepper, vinegar, olive. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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