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Asparagus, Fricasseed

A buttery vegetable stew of asparagus, lettuce, endive, and onion simmered in stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and endive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 284 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Asparagus, Fricasseed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the asparagus and cut off the tender portions, then soak them in cold water until needed.

  2. Drain the asparagus.

  3. Chop the asparagus, lettuce, endive, and onion.

Make the fricassee

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and mix in the flour until smooth.

  2. Add the stock.

  3. Stir in the chopped vegetables.

  4. Season with pepper and salt.

  5. Let it stew gently until the sauce thickens, about 30 minutes.

  6. Serve hot.

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. Lettuce + endivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together284 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Asparagus + endivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together33 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Asparagus + lettucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together313 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  5. Endive + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together111 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 and gives it its vegetable flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Stock
Provides the liquid that the vegetables stew in and the sauce is built on.
Lettuce
Softens as it stews, adding moisture and a mild, tender texture.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and depth to the stewed sauce.

The step that matters

Stew gently until the sauce thickens. Flour thickens liquid only as its starch swells in simmering heat. Stewing too hard can break the sauce or scorch the bottom, so keep the heat low and stir.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, lettuce, endive, butter, flour, 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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