Why it works: Asparagus and sauce work together. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 573 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Boiled Asparagus
Ingredients
Directions
Untie and wash the bunches of asparagus.
Rearrange the asparagus in bunches and tie with string.
Cook in boiling salted water for 20 minutes, ensuring the water covers the asparagus to two inches from the tips.
Turn the asparagus on its side and cook for an additional 10 minutes.
Drain, remove the string, and pour Mousse-line Sauce over the asparagus.
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.
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Asparagus + saucetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together573 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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