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Asparagus Soup

A soup made with chicken stock, asparagus, butter, milk, flour, cream, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Cut the heads off the asparagus and set aside in a cup.

  2. Chop the stalks and add them to the chicken stock.

  3. Boil the stalks in the stock for one hour.

  4. Boil the reserved asparagus heads in 1 cup of salted water until tender.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a stew pan and mix in enough flour to create a paste.

  2. Gradually stir in the milk and cook until thickened.

  3. Strain the chicken stock.

  4. Stir the strained stock into the milk mixture.

  5. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  6. Stir in the cream and the reserved asparagus heads before serving.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Chicken + asparagustop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together539 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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 and flour
Form a roux that thickens the milk into a smooth, body-rich base.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the soup and thickens with the roux.
Asparagus
Provides the main vegetable flavor and, from the stalks, body to the stock.
Chicken stock
Carries the asparagus flavor and forms the liquid base of the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a silkier mouthfeel at the end.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the milk and cook until thickened. Adding milk all at once to a flour-butter paste can leave lumps. Adding it gradually while stirring keeps the starch evenly dispersed, so the base thickens smoothly.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

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