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Asparagus Soup

A soup made from boiled asparagus, cream, milk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Asparagus and milk work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 650 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Wash the asparagus and cut it into small pieces.

  2. Cook the asparagus in boiling water until tender, leaving about 1 pint of liquid.

  3. Strain the asparagus through a colander.

  4. Rub the strained asparagus through, leaving the hard parts.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, combine the asparagus mixture with salt, cream, and milk.

  2. Boil the mixture for a few minutes.

  3. Serve.

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 + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together650 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  3. Asparagus + creamtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together838 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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 and flavor of the soup once cooked and pureed.
Thin cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture through its fat content.
Milk
Thins the puree and adds mild sweetness and body.

The step that matters

Rub the strained asparagus through. Pushing the cooked asparagus through a strainer breaks it into fine particles and separates out the fibrous hard parts, which determines whether the soup is smooth rather than gritty or stringy.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, milk):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Asparagusthe original
  4. Onionfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, milk. 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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