Skip to main content
Main

Asparagus Sauce

A sauce made with boiled asparagus, butter, parsley, onions, sugar, and sauce tournee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Asparagus and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 566 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Asparagus Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Break the asparagus in the tender part.

  2. Wash the asparagus well.

  3. Place the asparagus in boiling salted water until green.

  4. Once tender, remove the asparagus and place in cold water.

  5. Drain the asparagus on a cloth until dry.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter with the parsley and onions.

  2. Add the asparagus to the saucepan and fry over high heat for 5 minutes.

  3. Add salt, sugar, and sauce tournee.

  4. Simmer for another 5 minutes.

  5. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

  6. If the color is not good, add a little spinach green.

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. Asparagus + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together566 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Forms the body of the sauce and gives it its main flavour.
Butter
Carries flavour and gives the sauce a rich, smooth mouthfeel.
Sauce tournee
Adds body and thickening to the sauce.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a fine sieve. Pushing the cooked asparagus through a fine sieve breaks down the fibres and removes stringy pieces, giving the sauce a smooth, even texture.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (asparagus, butter, onion, sugar, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, butter, onion, sugar, sauce. 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.

More asparagus sauce recipes

Shrimp 3 See all 46 →

You might also like

Asparagus SoupAsparagus Soup179 recipesAsparagus SaladAsparagus Salad77 recipesCream of AsparagusCream of Asparagus38 recipesBoiled AsparagusBoiled Asparagus27 recipes