Why it works: Asparagus and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,026 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Fried Asparagus
Ingredients
Directions
Cook
Boil the asparagus for 2 minutes, then drain it.
Dip each piece in butter.
Fry the asparagus in hot fat until golden.
Finish and serve
Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and serve hot.
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.
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Asparagus + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,026 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Asparagus
- Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender-crisp when briefly boiled before frying.
- Butter
- Adds richness and flavour and helps the asparagus brown during frying.
The step that matters
Fry the asparagus in hot fat until golden. The fat must be hot enough to brown the surface quickly. If the fat is too cool, the asparagus absorbs grease and turns soggy instead of crisp and golden.
“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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