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Asparagus with Hollandaise Sauce II

A dish of hot asparagus topped with a creamy hollandaise sauce made from egg yolks, lemon juice, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 with Hollandaise Sauce II

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sauce

  1. In a bowl, beat the yolks of 2 eggs.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice or vinegar and ½ cup of boiling water to the eggs.

  3. Stir over low heat until thickened.

  4. Add 1 teaspoon of salt, ¼ teaspoon of paprika, and ½ cup of creamed butter.

Serve

  1. Arrange hot asparagus tips on plates covered with several leaves of lettuce.

  2. Serve the sauce immediately over the asparagus.

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

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

  2. Asparagus + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together704 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Lettuce + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus tips
Serve as the main vegetable, with tender texture when kept hot.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with butter and set when heated, thickening the sauce into a smooth custard.
Lemon juice or vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the butter and sharpens the flavor.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the sauce and gives it a smooth, creamy body.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat until thickened. Egg yolks begin to set around 65°C (150°F). Too much heat scrambles them into curds, so gentle, constant stirring keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, egg, lemon, butter. 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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