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Asparagus Loaf

A baked or stewed loaf made with butter, flour, cream, eggs, and cooked asparagus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Asparagus Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mold

  1. Grease a 3‑pint mold or bowl with butter and decorate the bottom and sides with cooked asparagus stalks.

Make the custard

  1. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a double boiler, then stir in 2 tablespoons of flour, ½ teaspoon of salt, and ¼ teaspoon of paprika.

  2. Gradually add 1 cup of cream, 1½ cups of cooked asparagus tips, and 4 beaten eggs.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into the mold and cook in a dish of hot water until the center is firm, either in the oven at 400 °F (200 °C) or on the stove without boiling the water.

  2. Invert onto a serving dish and serve with or without a cream sauce with added asparagus tips.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Asparagus + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Asparagus + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Set the custard into a firm loaf when cooked gently.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the loaf tender.
Flour
Thickens the butter mixture so the custard holds its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour and helps build the base sauce.
Cooked asparagus tips
Provide the main asparagus flavour and tender texture throughout the loaf.

The step that matters

Cooking the loaf gently in hot water. Eggs set into a firm custard when heated gently. If the water boils or the heat is too high, the eggs can overcook, turning the loaf grainy, watery, or full of holes.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Asparagusthe original
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream, egg. 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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