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Eggs with Asparagus Tips

A quick pan‑fried dish of eggs and asparagus tips seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Eggs with Asparagus Tips

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain the asparagus tips and rinse them with cold water, then drain again until dry.

  2. In a bowl, slightly beat the eggs with the milk.

Cook

  1. Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat and add the asparagus tips.

  2. Once the asparagus is hot, season with salt and pepper, then stir in the egg mixture.

  3. Continue stirring from the bottom until the eggs are firm.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately on slices of buttered toast.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

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

  4. Asparagus + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into soft curds that give the dish its main body and structure.
Asparagus tips
Add a tender, vegetable texture and mild flavor to the eggs.
Milk
Adds moisture so the eggs stay tender rather than dry.
Butter
Adds richness and helps keep the eggs from sticking to the pan.

The step that matters

Stirring the eggs until firm. Eggs set from the outside in when heated. Stirring from the bottom moves the uncooked egg to the hot surface and keeps curds small and tender. Overcooking squeezes out moisture and makes them tough and dry.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Asparagusthe original
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, pepper, butter. 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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