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Asparagus Patties

A savory patty made from cooked asparagus, butter, flour, milk, and bread, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Asparagus Patties

Ingredients

Directions

Make the asparagus sauce

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan.

  2. Whisk in flour, salt, and white pepper.

  3. Gradually add milk, stirring until thickened.

Serve on toast

  1. Toast the bread slices until light brown.

  2. Scoop out the centers of the toasted bread.

  3. Fill the toasted bread with the asparagus mixture.

  4. Serve the filled bread hot.

Make the pastry cases

  1. Line deep pan or patty pans with short crust pastry.

  2. Cut pastry lids for the tops.

  3. Bake the pastry cases until golden.

  4. Fill the pastry cases with hot asparagus.

  5. Place the lids on top of the pastry cases.

  6. 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.

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

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

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

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

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Cooked asparagus
Forms the main body of the filling and provides its flavour and texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce, carrying flavour into the mixture.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that holds the asparagus together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens when heated with the flour.

The step that matters

Gradually add milk, stirring until thickened. Adding milk slowly while stirring keeps the flour dispersed, preventing lumps and giving a smooth, evenly thickened sauce.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, butter, flour, milk, 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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