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Asparagus Soup

A soup made with asparagus, onion, ham hock, chicken, and thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Onion and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,814 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off one inch from the tops of the asparagus and soak them in water.

  2. Chop the stalks and place them in a soup pot with the chopped onion, salt, pepper, and water.

  3. Boil briskly until the asparagus stalks are tender.

Make the soup

  1. Strain the stalks from the liquid and return the liquid to the pot with the asparagus tops, hock of ham, and chicken.

  2. Boil until the chicken is cooked through.

Thicken

  1. Thicken the soup by mixing flour and butter together, then adding some of the soup or milk to create a paste.

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. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  2. Asparagus + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,212 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Asparagus + chickentop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Provides the main vegetable flavour and the body of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter and liquid.
Butter
Combines with flour to form a smooth paste that thickens the soup.
Hock of ham
Adds savoury, smoky flavour to the broth as it simmers.
Chicken
Adds meaty flavour and richness to the broth.

The step that matters

Thicken the soup with a flour and butter paste. Flour must be mixed into a smooth paste with butter, then thinned with hot soup or milk, before stirring in. Adding flour directly to hot liquid forms lumps, because starch clumps unless it is separated and dispersed first.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, pepper, ham, chicken, flour, 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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