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Asparagus Soup

A veal broth-based soup with asparagus, mint, flour, butter, cream, and optional spinach juice for color.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Boil the asparagus and mint in the veal broth until tender.

  2. Cut the tender heads of asparagus into 1-inch pieces and set aside.

  3. Boil the remaining asparagus until very tender.

  4. Press the boiled asparagus through a sieve into the soup.

Thicken and season

  1. Mix the flour with the butter until smooth.

  2. Add the mixture to the soup.

  3. Season the soup with salt, cayenne pepper, and sugar.

  4. Add the cream.

  5. Let the soup simmer until the flour is cooked.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the reserved asparagus heads.

  2. If the soup is not green enough, color it with spinach juice before serving.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  4. Mint + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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 body of the soup once pressed through a sieve.
Veal broth
Forms the liquid base that carries the asparagus flavor.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with the butter, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and smooths the flour into the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Let the soup simmer until the flour is cooked. Flour thickens only after its starch granules swell in hot liquid. Simmering long enough cooks out the raw starch taste and gives the soup full body, so stopping early leaves it pasty and floury.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, asparagus, flour, butter, pepper, sugar, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, asparagus, flour, butter, pepper, sugar, cream. 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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