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Creamed Asparagus

Creamed asparagus with boiled egg, soup, milk, cheese, dressing, and melted butter baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Creamed Asparagus

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble

  1. Line a casserole dish with a layer of asparagus.

  2. Top with a layer of sliced boiled egg.

  3. Add a layer of soup mixed with heated milk and cheese.

  4. Layer dressing mixed with melted butter on top.

Bake

  1. Bake for 20 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Asparagus + cheesetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together219 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
Forms the main vegetable layer and provides the base texture of the dish.
Sliced boiled egg
Adds soft, rich body and a mild savory flavor to the layers.
Soup
Forms a creamy sauce that binds the layers together as it heats.
Milk
Thins the soup mixture into a pourable, creamy sauce.
Cheese
Melts into the sauce, adding richness and savory flavor.
Melted butter
Adds fat that helps the top layer brown and taste rich.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, cheese, 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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