Why it works: Artichoke and sauce work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 462 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Artichokes, Boiled
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash the artichokes in several waters.
Cut off the stems and trim the leaves if necessary.
Boil
Put them into boiling water, adding 1 teaspoon of salt for each quart of water.
If the water is hard or the artichokes are old, add a piece of baking soda the size of a Spanish nut.
Keep the saucepan uncovered and boil quickly for 25 to 30 minutes until tender.
Serve
Drain well and serve with Hollandaise sauce or oiled butter.
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 + saucetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together462 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Globe artichokes
- The main vegetable; the edible base and leaves are cooked until tender.
- Baking soda (in the method)
- Added only to hard water or older artichokes, it helps keep the green colour in the cooking water.
- Hollandaise sauce
- A rich, buttery sauce that adds fat and a creamy contrast to the mild artichoke.
The step that matters
Boil quickly, uncovered, until tender. A rolling boil with the lid off keeps the water vigorously agitated and lets steam escape, so the artichokes cook evenly and do not turn dull or stewed. Testing for tenderness near the end prevents overcooking, which makes leaves mushy and flavour flat.
“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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