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Asparagus Soup

A creamy soup made with asparagus, stock, milk, cream, butter, flour, and onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Cut the tops from 1 bunch of asparagus and cook them in salted water for 20 minutes.

  2. Cook the remaining asparagus in the quart of stock or water for 20 minutes.

Make the soup

  1. Slice the onion thinly and fry it in butter for 10 minutes, being careful not to burn.

  2. Add the boiled asparagus from the stock to the onion and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Stir in the flour and cook for 5 minutes longer.

  4. Transfer this mixture to the boiling stock and simmer gently for 20 minutes.

  5. Pass the soup through a sieve.

  6. Add the milk and cream, which should be just boiled, along with the asparagus tops.

  7. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve

  1. Serve.

  2. Optionally, serve with dropped eggs.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Asparagus
Provides the main flavour and body of the soup once cooked and sieved.
Butter
Fat that softens the onion and carries its flavour into the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup by cooking with the butter and onion into a roux.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the soup's flavour.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it fries gently in butter.

The step that matters

Frying the onion without burning. Browned or burnt onion turns bitter and dark, which spoils the pale, delicate flavour of asparagus. Cooking gently until soft keeps the sweetness and colour clean.

Swap the onion

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

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

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