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Artichokes a l’Italienne

Artichokes cooked in stock and butter, glazed, and served with Italian 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 a l’Italienne

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the artichokes under water with a little lemon juice added and shape them into pyramids.

Cook and glaze

  1. Cook the artichokes in ½ cup of stock with 2 tablespoons of butter until tender.

  2. Drain the artichokes, reduce a little of the stock, and add a little glaze.

  3. Brush the glaze over the artichokes.

Serve

  1. Arrange the artichokes neatly in a hot vegetable dish, pour the Italian sauce around, and serve.

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. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Artichoke + saucetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together462 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 dish, becoming tender as they cook in stock and butter.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the cooking liquid and glaze.
Italian sauce
Serves as the flavourful sauce poured around the artichokes at serving.

The step that matters

Reducing the stock into the glaze. Reducing concentrates the stock's flavour and body by evaporating water, so the glaze clings to the artichokes rather than running off. If it is reduced too far it turns salty and sticky, so watch it closely.

“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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