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Asparagus Soup

A soup made from boiled asparagus, milk, butter, and flour, served over toasted bread.

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 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

Cook the asparagus

  1. Boil the asparagus in water until tender.

  2. Return the cooked asparagus to the cooking water.

Make the milk base

  1. In a separate pot, heat the milk.

  2. Mix the butter and flour together, then stir into the milk and cook for a few minutes.

Combine and serve

  1. Season the mixture with salt and pepper, then pour it into the asparagus.

  2. Heat until boiling, then serve over toasted 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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
Main vegetable whose pulp and flavour give the soup its body and taste.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a rich, smooth texture to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the milk as its starch swells when heated, giving the soup body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and smoothness, carrying flavour through the soup.

The step that matters

Cooking the butter and flour into the milk. Flour must be cooked for a few minutes in the hot milk so its starch swells and thickens the soup and loses its raw, pasty taste. Stirring keeps the mixture smooth without lumps.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

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

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