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Puree of Asparagus

A creamy asparagus puree made with stock, butter, flour, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Puree of Asparagus

Ingredients

Directions

Make the puree base

  1. In a pot, bring a little more than 1 quart of white stock to a boil with the asparagus. Boil hard for 15 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture, pressing all the substance from the asparagus. Reserve the tips of asparagus for serving.

  3. Thicken the strained stock with the butter and flour.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, add the cream, salt, and pepper.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

White stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the asparagus flavor into the puree.
Asparagus
Supplies the main flavor and, once pressed through the strainer, the body of the puree.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and combines with flour to help thicken the stock.
Flour
Thickens the strained stock when cooked with butter, giving the puree body.

The step that matters

Thicken the strained stock with the butter and flour. Flour must be cooked with fat before or while it meets the hot liquid, otherwise it stays lumpy and tastes raw. Whisking the stock smoothly prevents clumps and gives an even, velvety thickness.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

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