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Artichokes

Boiled artichokes served with melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,513 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Artichokes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove some outer leaves from the artichokes.

  2. Trim the stem.

  3. Cut off the points of the leaves.

  4. Wash the artichokes and soak them in water for 1 hour.

Boil and serve

  1. Bring the water to a boil.

  2. Add vinegar and salt.

  3. Add the artichokes.

  4. Boil uncovered for 45 minutes.

  5. Drain the water and serve the artichokes on a napkin with melted 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. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Artichokes (in the method)
Are the main vegetable cooked whole until the leaves and heart become tender.
Butter
Melted butter for serving adds richness and fat that complements the mild artichoke flavor.
Vinegar
Adds a little acidity to the boiling water, which helps keep the artichoke color bright.

The step that matters

Boil uncovered for 45 minutes. Boiling uncovered lets the water and any steam escape, so the cooking liquid stays at a steady boil. Checking for tenderness near the end prevents overcooking, which makes the leaves mushy and dull in flavor.

“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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