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Asparagus

A baked asparagus dish topped with breadcrumbs, butter, salt, pepper, and diced hard-boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Asparagus

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Cut the tender ends of the asparagus into 1-inch pieces.

  2. Cook the asparagus in boiling water for about 15 minutes.

  3. Drain the asparagus. Save the cooking water for soup.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a buttered baking dish, layer the asparagus with bread crumbs, bits of butter, salt, pepper, and diced hard-boiled eggs.

  2. Sprinkle the top with buttered crumbs.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 25 minutes.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 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

Asparagus
Forms the main body of the dish and supplies its tender, vegetal texture.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumbs brown as they bake.
Bread crumbs
Add a crisp, golden topping and absorb moisture from the dish.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and richness, setting softly through the layers.

The step that matters

Drain the asparagus well. Excess cooking water left in the asparagus dilutes the layers and turns the bread crumbs soggy instead of letting them crisp in the oven.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Asparagusthe original
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Spinachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, pepper, egg. 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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