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Artichokes, Boiled

Boiled artichokes served with Hollandaise sauce or oiled butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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

  1. Wash the artichokes in several waters.

  2. Cut off the stems and trim the leaves if necessary.

Boil and serve

  1. Put the artichokes into boiling water and add 1 teaspoon of salt for each quart of water.

  2. If the water is hard or the artichokes are old, add a piece of baking soda.

  3. Keep the saucepan uncovered and boil quickly for 25 to 30 minutes until tender.

  4. Drain well and serve with Hollandaise sauce or oiled butter.

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 + saucetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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
Provide the tender edible heart and leaf bases that become soft when boiled.
Salt
Seasons the boiling water so the artichokes take on flavour as they cook.
Baking soda
Raises the water's alkalinity, which can help older or hard-water-cooked artichokes soften and keep a greener colour.

The step that matters

Keep the saucepan uncovered and boil quickly. Boiling uncovered lets volatile compounds that cause a dull or off flavour escape, and a rapid boil keeps the artichokes moving so they cook evenly until tender.

“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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