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Aspaeagus Soup

A veal and salt pork soup with asparagus, thickened with flour and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,930 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Aspaeagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine veal, salt pork, and water in a large pot.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Add half of the asparagus and simmer for 2.5 hours.

  4. Twenty minutes before serving, add the remaining asparagus.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the milk and thicken the soup with flour.

  2. Season with salt to taste and serve hot.

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. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

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

  2. Pork + asparagustop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together381 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Veal
Breaks down during long simmering to give the broth body and savory flavor.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory depth to the broth as it simmers.
Asparagus
Provides the main vegetable flavor; adding some later keeps the rest tender and bright.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the soup's flavor.
Flour
Thickens the soup by swelling with liquid as it heats.

The step that matters

Adding the remaining asparagus twenty minutes before serving. Asparagus overcooks quickly during a long simmer, turning dull and mushy. Adding the second batch late keeps some of it tender and fresh-tasting, while the first batch breaks down to flavor the broth.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, 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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