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Asparagus on Toast II

A dish of boiled asparagus served on toasted bread with a butter and lemon dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Asparagus on Toast II

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the asparagus

  1. Boil the asparagus stalks in salted water for 20 minutes.

  2. Remove the stalks and keep them warm.

Make the dressing

  1. Boil the water down to about 1 cup.

  2. Add the butter and lemon juice to the reduced water.

  3. Season with pepper and add salt if necessary.

Serve

  1. Place hot toast on a platter, add the asparagus, and pour the dressing over it.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Asparagus + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together704 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  5. Asparagus + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together363 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
The main vegetable, whose tender stalks form the centre of the dish.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the dressing a smooth, silky body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the buttery dressing and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Boil the water down to about 1 cup. Reducing the cooking water concentrates its flavour so the dressing tastes intense rather than watery. Because the liquid becomes saltier as it reduces, check the seasoning before adding more salt.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, lemon, pepper, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Asparagusthe original
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lemon, pepper, bread. 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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