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Soup

Asparagus Soup

A soup made from boiled asparagus, flour, butter, salt, cayenne, milk or cream, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Butter and milk 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

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Trim the asparagus, boil the stems until very tender.

  2. Press the cooked stems through a sieve into a pot.

Make the soup

  1. In a separate bowl, rub the flour with the butter until smooth.

  2. Stir the flour mixture into the soup.

  3. Season the soup with salt, cayenne pepper, milk or cream, and sugar.

  4. Add the tender asparagus heads and serve.

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.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Asparagus + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provides the main flavour and the body of the soup once the stems are pureed.
Flour
Thickens the soup by swelling in liquid, giving it a smooth, velvety body.
Butter
Mixed with the flour to form a roux-like paste that thickens and adds richness.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and a softer, creamier texture to the finished soup.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness to balance the vegetable flavour.

The step that matters

Rubbing the flour into the butter until smooth. If the flour and butter are not worked into a smooth paste before stirring, lumps form and do not dissolve evenly in the hot soup. Cooking the flour briefly with fat also helps it thicken without a raw starchy taste.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Sweet potatofits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, butter, pepper, milk, 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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