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To Boil Asparagus

A boiled asparagus dish served with melted butter or oil and vinegar dressing, optionally with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,968 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Boil Asparagus

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the asparagus stalks and wash them in cold water.

  2. Tie the asparagus in bundles of fifteen or twenty.

Boil and drain

  1. Bring a pot of water to a full boil and add the salt.

  2. Cook the asparagus for twenty minutes.

  3. Drain the asparagus thoroughly and steam them slightly.

Serve and make gravy

  1. Serve on toast with melted butter.

  2. For a cold dish, serve with oil and vinegar dressing.

  3. To make gravy, use the second water from boiling the asparagus.

  4. Add a lump of butter, salt, and pepper to the second water.

  5. Thicken with flour mixed with cold water if a thick gravy is desired.

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. Asparagus + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,968 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Asparagus + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Asparagus + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,026 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Asparagus stalks
Main vegetable; cooked until tender, forming the body of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour in the melted topping and the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy by swelling with liquid as it heats.

The step that matters

Drain the asparagus thoroughly and steam them slightly. Excess water left on the spears dilutes the butter or dressing and makes the serving soggy, so draining well keeps flavour concentrated.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, vinegar, pepper, flour. 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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