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Asparagus Sauce

A sauce made by stewing asparagus in milk with pepper and salt, then finished in drawn butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Slice the asparagus and parboil it until nearly done.

  2. Drain and cut the asparagus into small pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. Stew the asparagus in milk with black pepper and salt until done.

  2. Pour the asparagus mixture into drawn butter and serve.

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

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

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

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

  3. Asparagus + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together650 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Asparagus + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Forms the main body and flavour of the sauce once cooked and chopped.
Milk
Stews with the asparagus to create a smooth, creamy liquid base.
Drawn butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Stew the asparagus in milk until done. Milk can scorch or curdle if it boils hard, so keep the heat gentle and stir. Cooking the asparagus fully softens its fibres so the sauce becomes smooth rather than stringy or grainy.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Asparagusthe original

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