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Asparagus Au Jus

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chervil and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 148 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Asparagus Au Jus

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut asparagus into pieces.

  2. Chop parsley and chervil, then toss them in melted lard with a whole leek.

  3. Do not let the mixture brown.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Place in a stew-pan with broth and simmer gently.

  6. Once cooked, skim off the fat.

  7. Add beef gravy and squeeze lemon juice over the asparagus 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.

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. Chervil + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together148 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Asparagus + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together73 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Parsley + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Asparagus + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together128 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, chervil, leek, pepper, beef, lemon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, chervil, leek, pepper, beef, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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