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Asparagus Cheese

A baked dish of asparagus topped with a creamy cheese sauce, almonds, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Asparagus Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

  1. Make a thick white sauce by combining asparagus juice with sweet milk, flour, and butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the shredded cheese until melted and smooth.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cut the asparagus into three pieces and place them in a baking pan.

  2. Pour the cheese sauce over the asparagus and sprinkle with chopped almonds.

  3. Top with soft bread crumbs and dot with bits of butter.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden and bubbly.

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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Asparagus + almondtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together94 recipes

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus tips
Provides the main vegetable body and mild flavor of the dish.
Yellow cheese
Melts into the white sauce to give it richness and a savory, creamy texture.
Flour
Thickens the milk and asparagus juice into a smooth white sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and helps the sauce and topping brown.
Blanched almonds
Add a crunchy texture and nutty flavor to the topping.
Soft bread crumbs
Form a topping that crisps and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Cook the white sauce until thick before adding cheese. Flour must be cooked with the liquid and fat until the sauce thickens, or it stays thin and tastes floury. Stirring in cheese over gentle heat keeps it smooth, since high heat can make melted cheese turn grainy or oily.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, almond, milk, flour, butter, bread):

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Arrowrootfits about as well
  3. Asparagusthe original
  4. Sweet potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, almond, milk, flour, butter, bread. 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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