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Asparagus with Cream

A stuffed bread roll filled with asparagus and a cream mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Asparagus with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus and rolls

  1. Wash and boil the asparagus until tender.

  2. Cut a round piece from the top of each roll and scoop out the inside.

  3. Make holes in the tops of the rolls.

Make the cream filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the cream with the egg yolks.

  2. Add the scooped bread to the cream mixture along with most of the asparagus heads, saving some for garnish.

  3. Simmer the cream mixture over low heat for a few minutes.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the rolls in butter until golden brown.

  2. Fill the rolls with the cream mixture and top with the reserved asparagus heads.

  3. Replace the tops of the rolls 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Asparagus + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together363 recipes

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

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the cream mixture as they set, giving the filling a custard-like body.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, forming the base of the filling.
Bread rolls
Act as the edible vessel, absorbing the filling while the crust browns in butter.
Asparagus
Provides the main vegetable flavour and a tender texture in the filling and garnish.
Butter
Browns the outside of the rolls through frying, adding fat and aroma.

The step that matters

Simmer the cream mixture over low heat. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently; high heat can scramble them into lumps, so keep the heat low and stir.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, bread, 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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