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Asparagus Soup

A creamy soup made from boiled asparagus, blended with butter, flour, and beef extract, finished with egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Boil the asparagus in water for 5 minutes.

  2. Remove the asparagus from the pot.

  3. Cut the asparagus into small pieces.

  4. Return the asparagus pieces to the pot until tender.

  5. Strain the asparagus from the water.

Make the soup

  1. Mix the flour and butter until smooth.

  2. Heat the mixture in a saucepan, stirring until golden.

  3. Gradually add the asparagus water while stirring.

  4. Let the mixture simmer for 30 minutes.

  5. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

  6. Add the extract of beef, a walnut-sized piece of butter, and the asparagus pieces.

  7. Just before serving, stir in the egg yolk.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Asparagus + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together237 recipes

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

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

Asparagus
Provides the main flavour and the tender pieces that give the soup body.
Flour
Cooked with butter to form a roux that thickens the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and forms the roux with the flour.
Egg yolk
Added at the end to enrich and thicken the soup for a smooth texture.

The step that matters

Stirring in the asparagus water. Adding liquid to a hot roux too quickly, without stirring, can leave lumps. Adding it gradually while stirring keeps the flour smoothly dispersed and the soup even in texture.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, beef. 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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