Skip to main content
Main

Asparagus Soup

A creamy soup made with asparagus, stock, butter, flour, milk or cream, served with fried or toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the tips from the asparagus and cut the remainder into pieces.

  2. Boil the asparagus pieces in the stock for about 30 minutes.

  3. Fry a small onion in the butter, then remove the onion.

Make the soup

  1. Stir in the flour and gradually add 1 cup of the soup mixture.

  2. Combine this mixture with the remaining soup and strain through a coarse sieve.

  3. Return the soup to the heat and add the asparagus tips.

  4. Cook for an additional 10 minutes, then stir in the boiling milk or cream.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately with fried or toasted slices of bread.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  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

Asparagus
Forms the main body and flavor of the soup, with tips added later for texture.
Stock
Provides the liquid base in which the asparagus cooks and softens.
Butter
Carries the onion's flavor and adds richness to the soup base.
Flour
Thickens the soup, giving it a smoother, more body-filled texture.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and a creamy texture when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Gradually adding the soup mixture to the flour. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour dispersed, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth thickened soup.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, bread. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesAsparagus SaladAsparagus Salad77 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes