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Cream of Asparagus Soup

A soup made from asparagus, onion, stock, butter, flour, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Cream of Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Remove tips from asparagus.

  2. Cook asparagus tips in a little stock or water until tender.

Make the soup

  1. Fry the onion in butter.

  2. Cook asparagus stalks, parsley, celery, and fried onion in stock slowly for 35 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture, pressing as much asparagus through the sieve as possible.

  4. Place the soup on the stove.

  5. Add blended butter and flour.

  6. Cook slowly for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  7. Add hot asparagus tips, cream, salt, and pepper.

  8. Serve at once.

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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Asparagus + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together378 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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, when strained through the sieve, the body of the soup.
Butter
Carries the onion's flavour and, blended with flour, enriches and thickens the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter, giving it a smoother body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished soup.
Onion
Adds savoury depth when fried gently in butter before simmering.

The step that matters

Blending butter and flour into the soup. Flour must be fully blended with butter and cooked slowly, stirring, so it thickens smoothly without lumps or a raw floury taste.

Swap the onion

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

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

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