Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Boiled Asparagus
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the asparagus
Wash the asparagus in cold water and peel the white ends.
Place each stalk in cold water.
Tie the asparagus into small bundles and add to a kettle of boiling water.
Add salt and boil for 20 minutes.
Make the toast and sauce
While boiling, toast the bread, cut off the crusts, and butter it while hot on a heated platter.
In a saucepan, melt butter, add flour, and mix until smooth. Stir in the water from boiling asparagus and bring to a boil.
Season the sauce with salt and pepper.
Assemble and serve
Once the asparagus is done, drain it, cut the strings, and place it on the toast with heads facing one way.
Pour the sauce over the asparagus and serve.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
-
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Asparagus + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,968 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Asparagus + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together936 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Asparagus + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together363 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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
- Is the main vegetable, cooked by boiling until tender.
- Stale bread
- Forms the base that holds the asparagus and absorbs the butter and sauce.
- Butter
- Adds richness and flavour to the toast and enriches the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the butter and asparagus water into a smooth sauce.
The step that matters
Making the sauce roux. Flour must be fully mixed into the melted butter before liquid is added, otherwise lumps form and the sauce will not become smooth when thickened.
Swap the asparagus
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, flour, pepper):
- Shallotfits better
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Leekfits about as well
- Asparagusthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, flour, pepper. 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.
More boiled asparagus recipes
You might also like
Brown Bread461 recipes
Asparagus Soup179 recipes
White Bread80 recipes
Asparagus Salad77 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.