Why it works: Milk and butter 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
Cut the good parts of the asparagus.
Place them in a stew pan with boiling water, salt, and pepper, and simmer gently for 30 minutes.
Press the mixture through a colander into a double boiler.
Make the roux and thicken
In a bowl, rub together the butter and flour.
Add a little hot milk until the mixture pours like cream.
Stir the roux into the milk in the double boiler.
Beat well with an egg beater as it thickens.
Cook the tips and serve
In a separate pan, cook the asparagus tips with the bay leaf, onion slice, and boiling water for 10-15 minutes until tender.
Season the soup.
Pour it into a hot soup tureen.
Distribute the asparagus tips on top.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Asparagus + oniontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,212 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Asparagus + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,968 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together68,474 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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 the green body of the soup.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that becomes creamy when thickened.
- Flour
- Thickens the soup as part of the roux with butter.
- Butter
- Enriches the roux and adds richness and flavor to the soup.
The step that matters
Beat the roux into the milk as it thickens. Flour thickens only when its starch granules swell in hot liquid. Stirring the roux in evenly and beating while it heats keeps lumps from forming and gives a smooth, even thickness.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (asparagus, milk, flour, butter, pepper):
- Potatofits better
- Leekfits better
- Chivefits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, milk, flour, butter, pepper. 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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