Why it works: Asparagus and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,026 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Plain Asparagus
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Scrape the white of each asparagus stalk lightly and place them in cold water.
Tie the asparagus in bundles of twenty-five or twelve to fifteen, keeping the heads together.
Cook and serve
Cook the bundles in boiling water with salt for fifteen minutes.
Serve the asparagus on a piece of toast with oiled fresh butter.
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.
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Asparagus + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,026 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Asparagus
- Is the main vegetable, cooked whole in bundles so the stalks cook evenly.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the cooking water so the asparagus is flavoured as it cooks.
- Fresh butter
- Adds richness and fat to the finished asparagus when served.
The step that matters
Cooking the bundles for fifteen minutes. Asparagus cooks quickly, and the time in boiling water decides whether the stalks stay tender or turn soft and dull. Keeping the bundles together also helps the heads cook gently while the stalks cook through.
“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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