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Soup

Cream of Asparagus

A creamy soup made with asparagus pulp, flour, butter, water, milk, salt, white pepper, and nutmeg.

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

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Cream of Asparagus

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a thick saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour and stir until smoothly blended.

  3. Gradually stir in the hot water and milk.

  4. Add the asparagus pulp and season with salt, white pepper, and nutmeg.

  5. Stir the soup until it boils and is perfectly smooth.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Asparagus + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + asparagustop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Thickens the butter and liquids into a smooth, body-rich soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries the flour into a smooth roux.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body, giving the soup a rich, mellow texture.
Asparagus pulp
Provides the main asparagus flavour and thickens the soup as it cooks.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the melted butter until smooth. Flour added to fat must be fully blended before liquid goes in, or lumps form that stay in the finished soup. Stirring it smooth first lets the starch disperse evenly.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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