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Asparagus Soup

A soup made with green asparagus and beef broth, served hot with optional toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Asparagus and beef work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 237 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the asparagus

  1. Cut the green portions of the asparagus, enough to fill a quart measure.

  2. Boil the asparagus in water with a little salt until tender.

  3. Drain the asparagus and add it to the beef broth.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup very hot, with small squares of toasted bread if desired.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Asparagus + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together237 recipes

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

  2. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

Green asparagus
Supplies the main vegetable flavor and tender body of the soup.
Beef broth
Forms the liquid base and carries the savory flavor through the soup.

The step that matters

Boil the asparagus until just tender. Green asparagus turns dull and olive-colored and loses its fresh flavor when overcooked, because prolonged heat breaks down its green chlorophyll and soft cell structure. Check it often and drain once tender.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Onionfits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread. 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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