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Asparagus Salad

A salad of boiled asparagus seasoned with salt, pepper, vinegar, and olive oil.

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

Why it works: Asparagus and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,096 recipes. Both carry trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Asparagus Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and boil

  1. Scrape the asparagus.

  2. Wash the asparagus without cutting it.

  3. Boil the asparagus in salted water until soft, ensuring the heads are not damaged.

  4. Drain the water.

Dress and cool

  1. Add pepper, salt, and strong vinegar.

  2. Let the asparagus cool.

Arrange and finish

  1. Arrange the asparagus with the heads in the center of the dish.

  2. Mix the vinegar used for boiling with olive oil.

  3. Pour the mixture 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.

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 + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,096 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Asparagus + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,968 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  4. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Forms the body of the salad and turns tender when boiled.
Strong vinegar
Adds sharpness that cuts through the richness of the oil.
Good olive oil
Adds fat and carries flavor, coating the asparagus with moisture.

The step that matters

Boiling until soft without damaging the heads. Boiling too long makes asparagus limp and dull in color, while stopping too early leaves it fibrous. The tender tips are the most fragile part, so they should be kept intact while the stalks soften.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, vinegar, olive):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar, olive. 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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