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Asparagus a LA Crème

A creamy asparagus dish with butter, cream, herbs, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 a LA Crème

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the green part of the asparagus into 1‑inch pieces and blanch in boiling water.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stew‑pan, toss the asparagus in butter or lard over medium heat, being careful not to make them greasy.

  2. Add cream, herbs, pepper, and salt; let them stew until tender.

  3. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with a little cream and sugar, then add to the sauce.

  4. Mix well, heat through, and 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.

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

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 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

Asparagus
Forms the main body of the dish and gives it its vegetable flavor and tender texture.
Butter or lard
Adds fat for richness and carries flavor when the asparagus is tossed over heat.
Cream
Provides moisture and a smooth, rich body for the sauce as it stews.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream into a smooth custard-like sauce and add richness.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently, but if the sauce is too hot when they go in, they can scramble and turn grainy. Add them off the heat or with the sauce only warm, then heat through gently.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

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