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Cream Asparagus, Countess

A creamy asparagus dish flavored with parsley, celery, nutmeg, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Cream Asparagus, Countess

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Cut the tender parts of the asparagus.

  2. Parboil the asparagus.

  3. Immerse the asparagus in cold water, then drain.

Make the sauce

  1. Place the asparagus in a saucepan with enough boiling white broth to cook them.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, and add the faggot of parsley and celery.

  3. Cook thoroughly, then add the cream sauce, nutmeg, and sugar.

  4. Pound the mixture through a colander, then rub it through a fine sieve.

  5. Return to the saucepan to keep warm without boiling.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, add the butter and cream mixed with the egg yolks, stirring until the butter melts.

  2. Serve garnished with asparagus tops and add spinach for a bright green color.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 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. Pepper + celerytop 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 main body of the purée and gives its flavour and colour.
Cream sauce
Adds richness and a smooth, body-giving texture to the purée.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel as it melts into the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness, softening the purée's texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the finished sauce gently and add richness when heated slowly.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and cream mixture. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat and can scramble if the sauce boils. Keep the purée warm, not boiling, and stir while the butter melts so the sauce stays smooth.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, parsley, celery, cream, sauce, nutmeg, sugar. 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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