Skip to main content
Main

Asparagus Sandwiches

A sandwich made with cooked asparagus, mayonnaise, aspic, whipped cream, and seasonings, served on buttered bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and butter 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 Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Cook the asparagus points in salted water with a small piece of lump sugar until thoroughly cooked.

  2. Drain the asparagus.

  3. Rub the asparagus through a wire sieve into a basin to cool.

  4. Gradually stir in the mayonnaise sauce and aspic jelly (liquid but not warm).

  5. Add the whipped cream as the mixture begins to set.

  6. Season to taste.

Assemble and serve

  1. Cut thin slices of bread.

  2. Butter the slices slightly.

  3. Spread the prepared mixture on each slice.

  4. Assemble the sandwiches.

  5. Cut them into rounds, oblongs, or squares.

  6. Arrange on a plate.

  7. Fill the center with crisp salad and slices of hard-boiled eggs if desired.

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.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Asparagus + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together363 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Asparagus points
Provides the main flavour and bulk of the filling once cooked and puréed.
Mayonnaise sauce
Adds fat and richness, giving the filling a smooth, creamy body.
Aspic
Gelatine-based jelly that helps the filling set so it holds its shape in the sandwich.
Whipped cream
Adds air and fat, lightening the filling's texture and softening its set.

The step that matters

Add the whipped cream as the mixture begins to set. If the filling is too warm, the aspic will not set and the cream will deflate or melt into it; if it has set fully, the cream will not blend in evenly. Timing keeps the cream airy and the filling spreadable.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, cream, pepper, bread, butter. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesAsparagus SoupAsparagus Soup179 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesAsparagus SaladAsparagus Salad77 recipes