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Salad

Asparagus Salad

A salad of chilled asparagus served on lettuce or in turnip cups.

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

Why it works: Lettuce and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 526 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Asparagus Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Cook and chill

  1. Cook the asparagus tips in salted water until tender.

  2. Chill the cooked asparagus.

Serve

  1. Serve the chilled asparagus on a bed of lettuce or in cups made from cooked and scooped-out turnips.

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. Lettuce + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Asparagus + lettucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together313 recipes

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

  3. Asparagus + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus tips
Form the main body of the salad, providing the tender, fresh-tasting vegetable base.
Lettuce
Provides a crisp, cool bed that holds the chilled asparagus.
Turnips
Serve as edible cups that hold the asparagus, adding a mild, slightly sweet flavour when cooked.

The step that matters

Cook the asparagus until tender. Asparagus cooked past tender turns soft and olive-drab, while undercooked spears stay fibrous. Stopping at the point where a knife slides in easily keeps the texture firm yet tender.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, turnip):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Kalefits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, turnip. 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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