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Cream of Asparagus Soup

A creamy soup made with asparagus, milk, butter, flour, egg, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Cream of Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cream of Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, combine the asparagus and hot water. Bring to a boil.

  2. In a separate pan, melt the butter and stir in the flour. Gradually add the hot milk, salt, and mace, stirring until smooth.

  3. Once the asparagus is boiling, add the milk mixture.

  4. In a bowl, beat the egg and mix in the hot cream. Stir this into the soup.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the asparagus tips and serve hot.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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
Provides the main flavor and body of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor in the sauce base.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, body-giving base.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base and adds mild sweetness.
Egg
Enriches and thickens the soup when gently stirred in.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg and cream into the soup. Egg proteins set with heat and can curdle or scramble if the mixture is too hot or added too quickly. Tempering the egg with hot cream and stirring it gradually into the soup keeps it smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, butter, flour, milk, egg, cream. 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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