Why it works: Asparagus and sugar work together. They rank in the top 28% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 488 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Asparagus Syrup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the asparagus
Cut off the tender part of the asparagus and wash well in cold water.
Make the liquid
Place the asparagus in a saucepan with the water and cook until reduced to 5 pints.
Drain the asparagus and strain the liquid through a flannel filter.
Make and bottle the syrup
Add the cube sugar to the strained liquid and cook until it reaches a syrup consistency at 32 degrees.
Once cold, pour the syrup into bottles and cork tightly.
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.
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Asparagus + sugartop 28% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together488 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Asparagus
- Provides the flavour and colour of the liquid that becomes the syrup.
- Cube sugar
- Provides sweetness and the body that gives the syrup its thick consistency.
The step that matters
Reducing the liquid to syrup consistency. Sugar syrup thickens as water boils off and its concentration rises. Cooking past the target makes it too thick and grainy when cool, while stopping early leaves it thin and prone to spoiling.
“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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