Skip to main content
Main

Boiled Asparagus

A simple boiled asparagus dish seasoned with butter and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Boiled Asparagus

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 ↓

Boiled Asparagus

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the lower parts of the asparagus where they snap.

  2. Wash and tie the asparagus together.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook in boiling salted water for 20 to 35 minutes, keeping the tips out of the water for the first 10 minutes.

  2. Drain and place on a hot serving dish.

  3. Spread with butter and sprinkle with salt.

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. Asparagus + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked until tender while the tips steam above the water.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth coating that gives the cooked spears flavour and moisture.

The step that matters

Keeping the tips out of the water. Asparagus tips are delicate and cook faster than the thick stalks. Keeping them above the boiling water for the first 10 minutes lets them steam gently, so they do not turn mushy while the stalks finish cooking.

“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.

More boiled asparagus recipes

on Toast 6with Toast 5 See all 76 →

You might also like

Asparagus SoupAsparagus Soup179 recipesAsparagus SaladAsparagus Salad77 recipesCream of AsparagusCream of Asparagus38 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes