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Asparagus Soup

A veal broth-based soup with tender asparagus, mint, and a butter‑flour roux, finished with cream and optional spinach juice for color.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Boil the asparagus and mint in the veal broth until tender.

  2. Cut the tender asparagus heads off, about 1 inch long, and set aside.

  3. Boil the remaining asparagus until very tender.

  4. Press the boiled asparagus through a sieve into the soup.

Thicken and finish

  1. Mix the flour with the butter until smooth.

  2. Add the flour‑butter mixture to the soup.

  3. Season the soup with salt, cayenne pepper, and sugar.

  4. Let the soup simmer until the flour is cooked.

  5. Add the reserved asparagus heads to the soup.

  6. If the soup is not green enough, add spinach juice for color.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup.

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.

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.

  1. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  4. Mint + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Provides the main flavor and the body of the soup when pressed through a sieve.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks, giving it a smoother body.
Butter
Adds richness and helps bind the flour into a smooth paste before it goes into the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, softer texture to the finished soup.
Veal broth
Forms the savory liquid base that carries the asparagus flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour-butter mixture. Flour must be cooked through in the simmering soup, or it tastes raw and floury and may leave the soup pasty. Stirring it smooth first prevents lumps.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, asparagus, flour, butter, pepper, sugar, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, asparagus, flour, butter, pepper, sugar, cream. 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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