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Aspakagus Soup

A hearty soup made with ygal, salt pork, asparagus, water, milk, flour, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and asparagus work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 381 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Aspakagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine the ygal and salt pork with 3 quarts of water in a large pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add half of the asparagus.

  4. Boil for about 3 hours.

  5. Add the remaining asparagus twenty minutes before serving.

  6. Boil until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in 1 pint of milk.

  2. Thicken the soup with a little flour.

  3. Season with salt to taste 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. Pork + asparagustop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together381 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Asparagus + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together650 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Provides the main vegetable flavor and body of the soup.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy texture to the broth.
Flour
Thickens the soup so it becomes heavier and smoother.
Salt pork
Adds savory fat and salty flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Add the remaining asparagus twenty minutes before serving. Asparagus cooks quickly and turns dull and mushy with prolonged boiling, so adding it late keeps its color, flavor and texture while the long-simmered base develops.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, milk, 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.

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