Skip to main content
Main

Asparagus. No. 3

Creamed asparagus with butter, cream, and flour sauce served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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. No. 3

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Skin the asparagus and cut off the tough ends, reserving them for the sauce.

  2. Tie the asparagus in bunches and steam until tender.

  3. Place the steamed asparagus on pieces of toast and cut into diamond shapes.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, boil the reserved tough ends in a small amount of water until done.

  2. Strain the juice through a sieve and measure out 1/2 cup.

  3. In a saucepan, combine the juice, 1/2 cup cream, 2 teaspoons butter, and salt to taste.

  4. Thicken the sauce with 1 teaspoon flour, stirring until smooth.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Asparagus + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Asparagus + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Forms the main vegetable, becoming tender when steamed.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks and stirs smooth.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with flour. Flour must be stirred in smoothly so its starch dissolves evenly; lumps form if it clumps, leaving a grainy sauce.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, flour. 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.

You might also like

Asparagus SoupAsparagus Soup179 recipesAsparagus SaladAsparagus Salad77 recipesCream of AsparagusCream of Asparagus38 recipesBoiled AsparagusBoiled Asparagus27 recipes