Name: Asparagus Soup
Ingredients: 4 bunches asparagus; 1 small onion; 1 pint milk; ½ pint cream; 1½ tablespoons sugar; 1 large tablespoon butter; 1½ tablespoons flour; pepper to season

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Wash and clean the asparagus, then place it in a saucepan with just enough water to cover.
Boil until the tips are soft, then cut them off and set aside.
Fry the onion in the butter, then add it to the saucepan with the asparagus.
Cook until very soft, mashing occasionally to extract all the juice.
Pass the mixture through a sieve.
Blend in the salt, sugar, and flour, stirring constantly.
Gradually add the milk and cream, and serve immediately.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Asparagus + oniontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,212 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Asparagus + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,968 recipes

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

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

Swap the onion

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

Potatofits better
Leekfits better
Spinachfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, milk, cream, sugar, butter, flour, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.