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Aspakagus Soup

A hearty soup made with veal, salt pork, asparagus, milk, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,930 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Aspakagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine veal, salt pork, and water. Bring to a boil.

  2. Add half of the asparagus and simmer for about 3 hours.

  3. Twenty minutes before serving, add the remaining asparagus.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, stir in the milk and thicken with flour.

  2. Season with salt 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. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Pork + asparagustop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together381 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Veal
Provides the meaty body and rich flavor that forms the base of the broth.
Asparagus
Adds its green, vegetal flavor to the soup, with part cooked long and part added late for freshness.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory depth to the broth as it simmers.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, softening the broth's savory flavor.
Flour
Thickens the soup, giving it body as it is stirred in with the milk.

The step that matters

Stirring in the milk and flour just before serving. Flour thickens liquid as starch granules swell with heat, so it can clump if added without being mixed well first. Adding milk at the end keeps it from curdling or scorching during the long simmer.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pork, milk, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, milk, flour. 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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