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Oil and Vinegar

Boiled artichokes served with white sauce or cold with oil and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Artichoke and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 738 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Oil and Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the stalks of the artichokes and remove the small leaves.

  2. Chop the leaves into smaller pieces.

Cook

  1. Boil the chopped leaves in water with salt, pepper, sweet herbs, and the onion or shallot.

  2. Once cooked, remove from heat and take out the choke.

Serve

  1. Serve the leaves and bottoms with white sauce, or cold with oil and vinegar.

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 + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together738 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Artichokes
Provide the main edible leaves and bottoms, which form the body of the dish.
Oil
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel when served cold with vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that cuts through the richness of the oil and brightens the artichoke flavour.

The step that matters

Removing the choke. The fibrous choke is inedible and can be tough or unpleasant if left in. It should be removed once the artichoke is cooked and cool enough to handle, while the tender bottom and leaves remain intact.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, pepper, sauce, 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.

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