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Asparagus, Pompadoue

Boiled asparagus topped with a butter, egg yolk, lemon, and spice sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Asparagus, Pompadoue

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Prepare the asparagus by tying it in bundles and cutting off the hard parts, leaving only the tender parts.

  2. Cook the asparagus in boiling water seasoned with salt until tender, then drain and keep warm.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the butter, salt, mace, red pepper, egg yolks, lemon juice, and cold water.

  2. Place the saucepan in boiling water and stir continuously with a whisk until the sauce thickens.

Assemble and serve

  1. Remove from heat and layer the asparagus on a dish, followed by two layers of sauce.

  2. Serve hot with a spoon; eat with a fork.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Asparagus + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together704 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its tender, vegetal texture.
Unsalted butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they gently set with heat and emulsify the butter.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances the butter and yolks.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce over boiling water. Egg yolks can scramble if they get too hot. Gentle, continuous whisking over simmering water heats them slowly so they thicken smoothly into an emulsion rather than curdling.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (asparagus, butter, pepper, egg, lemon):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, butter, pepper, egg, lemon. 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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