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Salad

Asparagus Salad

A salad of cooked asparagus and peas served on lettuce leaves with mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Asparagus Salad

Why it works: Asparagus and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 313 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Asparagus Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the vegetables

  1. Cook the asparagus until tender.

  2. Cook the peas until tender.

Serve

  1. Serve the asparagus and peas on a lettuce leaf.

  2. Drizzle with mayonnaise.

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

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

  2. Asparagus + peastop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together808 recipes

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

  3. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Provides the main tender green body of the salad, softened by cooking.
Peas
Adds sweetness and a soft, tender texture alongside the asparagus.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and creamy richness, along with moisture, to the vegetables.

The step that matters

Cook the asparagus until tender. Overcooked asparagus turns dull green and mushy because its cell walls break down too far. Cook it only until a knife slides in easily, so it keeps its colour and some bite.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, lettuce. 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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