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Asparagus Soup

A hearty beef and vegetable soup with asparagus, greens, and a French roll.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Lettuce and sorrel match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 317 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the beef into pieces and roll in flour.

  2. Place the bacon at the bottom of a stew pan and add the beef.

  3. Cover and cook on low heat, stirring occasionally until the gravy is drawn.

Stew and strain

  1. Add the water and ale, season with pepper and salt, and let it stew gently for 2 hours.

  2. Strain the liquid and remove the fat.

Add the greens and serve

  1. Add the white beet, spinach, cabbage lettuce, mint, sorrel, and marjoram.

  2. Bring to a boil, then add the asparagus tops and cook until tender.

  3. Serve hot with the French roll in the dish.

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. Lettuce + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Spinach + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together204 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Spinach + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Sorrel + asparagustop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together122 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Spinach + asparagustop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together274 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the main body of the soup, becoming tender as it stews slowly in liquid.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky, savoury flavour that seasons the stock as it renders.
Pale ale
Adds bitterness and malty depth to the stewing liquid.
Asparagus tops
Adds fresh, grassy flavour and tender green texture to the finished soup.
French roll crust
Served alongside the soup for bread to accompany it.

The step that matters

Strain and remove the fat. Skimming the fat after stewing keeps the broth clear and prevents it from tasting greasy. Removing it before adding the greens keeps the vegetables fresh in flavour.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, spinach, cabbage, lettuce, sorrel, marjoram, asparagus):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, spinach, cabbage, lettuce, sorrel, marjoram, asparagus. 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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