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Asparagus on Toast

A dish of boiled asparagus topped on toast with a buttery sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Asparagus on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the fresh asparagus carefully and boil until tender.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, cook the chopped onion, bay leaf, and peppercorns in butter until bubbling, without browning.

  2. Gradually add flour, stirring until smooth and thick.

  3. Add broth or milk and nutmeg, cooking for five minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture into a saucepan.

  5. Slowly add the beaten egg yolks and lemon juice, stirring to prevent boiling.

  6. Add butter bit by bit, stirring until very hot without boiling.

Serve

  1. Place the hot asparagus on pieces of hot toast and serve the sauce on the side.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Asparagus + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,212 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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set gently with heat, adding richness and a smooth body.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquid into a smooth base for the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Broth or milk
Forms the liquid body of the sauce and carries its flavor.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat, but if the sauce boils they can curdle and turn grainy. Stirring constantly and keeping the heat low keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (asparagus, butter, flour, chicken, nutmeg, egg, lemon):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, butter, flour, chicken, nutmeg, egg, lemon. 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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