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Salad, Asparagus

A salad of boiled asparagus dressed with olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,096 recipes. Both carry trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Salad, Asparagus

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the asparagus

  1. Trim the asparagus and cook in boiling salted water until tender.

  2. Drain and cool the asparagus in cold water.

Dress and serve

  1. Arrange the asparagus on a serving plate.

  2. Drizzle with olive oil and vinegar.

  3. Season with pepper to taste.

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 + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,096 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

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

  3. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  4. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 of the salad and is cooked until tender.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour across the spears.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the asparagus.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, vinegar, 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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