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Asparagus Soup

A soup made from boiled asparagus, milk, flour, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Wash the asparagus.

  2. Boil the asparagus in salted water for 30 minutes.

  3. Remove the asparagus from the water.

  4. Cut off the tops of the asparagus.

  5. Place the tops in a soup tureen.

Make the soup

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Press the asparagus through a colander.

  3. In a separate bowl, rub the butter and flour together.

  4. Add the milk to the butter and flour mixture and stir continuously until thickened.

  5. Add the pressed asparagus to the mixture.

  6. Remove the mixture from heat.

  7. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

  8. Pour the soup over the asparagus tops in the tureen.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Asparagus + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,968 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Provides the main flavor and body of the soup once pressed through a colander.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the soup and, when heated with the roux, becomes creamy.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy soup when cooked with butter and milk.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and combines with flour to form a thickening base.

The step that matters

Stirring the milk into the butter and flour mixture. Flour thickens only when its starch is evenly wetted and heated; adding milk gradually while stirring constantly prevents lumps and a grainy texture.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, pepper. 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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