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To Boil Asparagus

A simple boiled asparagus dish served with butter or dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,968 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Boil Asparagus

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the asparagus stalks and wash them in cold water.

  2. Tie the asparagus in bundles of fifteen or twenty.

Boil

  1. Bring a pot of water to a full boil and add the salt.

  2. Cook the asparagus for twenty minutes.

  3. Drain thoroughly.

  4. Steam slightly after cooking.

Serve

  1. Serve on toast with melted butter.

  2. For a cold dish, serve with oil and vinegar dressing.

Make gravy

  1. To make gravy, cut boiled asparagus into small pieces, discarding the white ends.

  2. Use the second boiling water to make gravy with butter, salt, pepper, and flour mixed with cold water.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Asparagus + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,026 recipes

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

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the toast and the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as its starch swells when heated in liquid.
Asparagus stalks
Form the main vegetable, becoming tender when boiled in water.

The step that matters

Cook the asparagus for twenty minutes. Asparagus cooked too long loses its firm texture and bright colour and turns soft. Timing the boil closely keeps the stalks tender but still firm.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper. 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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