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Cream of Asparagus Soup

A creamy soup made from boiled asparagus, stock, milk, butter, and flour, served optionally with toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Cut the tender tips from the asparagus into ½ inch pieces.

  2. Boil the asparagus tips until tender.

Make the soup

  1. Combine the remaining asparagus with 3 pints of water and 1 cup of stock in a pot.

  2. Boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Press the mixture through a colander.

  4. Rub together the butter and flour in a separate bowl.

  5. Add the butter‑flour mixture to the soup.

  6. Season the soup with salt and pepper.

  7. Stir in 1 cup of milk and the asparagus tips.

  8. If desired, serve over square bits of toast.

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

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

  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 flavour and body of the soup once pressed through a colander.
Butter
Combined with flour to form a roux that thickens the soup.
Flour
Works with butter to form a roux that thickens the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness to the soup's texture.

The step that matters

Adding the butter-flour mixture to the soup. Flour clumps if added raw to hot liquid. Rubbing it with butter first coats the starch granules so they disperse and thicken the soup smoothly.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

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