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Puree Asparagus, Conde

A creamy asparagus purée made with broth, parsley, butter, and seasoned with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Puree Asparagus, Conde

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Wash the asparagus well.

  2. Parboil the asparagus for 5 minutes.

  3. Immerse the asparagus in cold water.

  4. Drain the asparagus on a sieve.

Cook the purée

  1. Combine the asparagus, boiling broth, and the faggot of parsley in a saucepan.

  2. Cook the mixture on a brisk fire until done.

  3. Drain the mixture on a colander and remove the faggot of parsley.

  4. Thicken the broth.

  5. Let the broth boil slowly.

  6. Pound the asparagus through a colander.

  7. Season the purée with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and sugar.

  8. Cook the purée for 25 minutes.

  9. Rub the purée through a fine sieve and return it to the saucepan to keep warm.

  10. Add the butter to the purée.

  11. Stir until the butter is melted.

Serve

  1. Serve the purée with small fried bread crumbs.

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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Asparagus + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together378 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Forms the bulk of the purée and supplies its main flavour and body.
Chicken or veal broth
Cooks the asparagus and carries flavour into the purée, adding savoury depth.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture and a silky mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds a small amount of sweetness that balances the vegetable's earthiness.

The step that matters

Rub the purée through a fine sieve. Asparagus fibres stay stringy unless the cooked vegetable is pressed through a fine sieve, which produces a smooth texture. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the purée coarse and fibrous.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, parsley, celery, pepper, nutmeg, sugar, butter):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, parsley, celery, pepper, nutmeg, sugar, butter. 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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