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Green Asparagus Soup

A hearty soup made with veal, salt pork, asparagus, spinach, and butter, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 274 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Green Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine the veal, pork, onion, and hard parts of the asparagus stalks, all cut into small pieces, with the water in a large pot.

  2. Boil gently for four hours.

  3. Cook the spinach in a little water until tender.

  4. Chop the cooked spinach.

  5. Strain the chopped spinach back into the cooking water.

  6. Add a lump of sugar to the spinach liquid.

  7. Strain the soup.

Finish the soup

  1. Season the soup with salt and pepper.

  2. Bring the soup to a boil.

  3. Skim off any foam.

  4. Add the green heads of asparagus that have been kept in cold water.

  5. Boil slowly for twenty minutes.

  6. Stir in the butter rolled in flour.

  7. Boil for one minute.

  8. Simmer for an additional five minutes 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 + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together274 recipes

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

  2. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Spinach + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,336 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Asparagus + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,212 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Knuckle of veal
Releases gelatin and flavor into the broth, giving body to the soup.
Streaked salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the broth during long simmering.
Asparagus
Provides the main vegetable flavor and green color in the finished soup.
Butter
Enriches the soup and, rolled in flour, thickens it slightly while adding richness.
Flour
Combined with butter, it thickens the soup as a roux-like binder.
Spinach leaves
Adds color and a mild, earthy green flavor to the soup base.

The step that matters

Stir in the butter rolled in flour, then boil for one minute. Flour thickens only when it is heated in liquid long enough to swell its starch; boiling briefly after adding the butter-flour mixture cooks out raw flour taste and sets the body, while stirring prevents lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pork, asparagus, spinach, pepper, butter, sugar):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, asparagus, spinach, pepper, butter, sugar. 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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