Name: Asparagus Points
Ingredients: asparagus, tied in bundles of twenty; 2 ounces coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt') for each gallon of water; plain oiled butter

Why it works: Asparagus and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,026 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Asparagus Points

Ingredients

asparagus, tied in bundles of twenty
2 ounces coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt') for each gallon of water
plain oiled butter

Directions

Cook the asparagus

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the salt.
Add the asparagus bundles and boil for 20 minutes.

Finish and serve

Drain the asparagus and cut off the heads.
Mix the asparagus heads with plain oiled butter and serve.

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.

Asparagus + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,026 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus: The main vegetable; boiling softens its stalks until they are tender enough to eat.
Plain oiled butter: Adds fat and richness, coating the asparagus heads and carrying flavor.

The step that matters

Timing the boil. Asparagus keeps softening after it leaves the water, so boiling for the full 20 minutes risks mushy, dull-colored spears. Drain promptly once they are tender to keep them firm and bright.

“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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Asparagus Points