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Aspahagus Soup

A soup made from asparagus heads, stems, stock, and optional sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and sherry work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Aspahagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Scrape the asparagus without cutting off the stems.

  2. Boil the asparagus in salted water until the heads are nearly done, about 12 minutes.

  3. Drain the asparagus and set aside the green heads.

Make the soup

  1. If stock is not made, add the asparagus stems to the vegetables; if stock is ready, boil the stems a little longer in the same water.

  2. Strain the stems, add the asparagus water to the stock, and bring to a boil.

  3. Drop in the green heads and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes.

  4. For added flavor, stir in a small quantity of sherry 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.

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 + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Provides the main flavor and the green tender heads that give the soup its texture.
Medium stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the asparagus flavor.

The step that matters

Boil the asparagus until the heads are nearly done. Overcooking dulls the bright green colour and turns the heads soft, while undercooking leaves them fibrous. Stopping near the end of cooking keeps the heads tender and green, and the final brief simmer finishes them without losing colour.

“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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