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Cream of Asparagus Soup

A soup made from boiled asparagus pulp, chicken stock, flour, butter, cream, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

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

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cream of Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Boil the asparagus until very soft.

  2. Press the boiled asparagus through a sieve and measure the pulp.

  3. Dilute the asparagus pulp with the chicken stock.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a pot.

  2. Blend the flour into the melted butter and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Add the diluted asparagus mixture to the pot.

  4. Place the pot on the fire.

  5. Stir in the cream.

  6. Beat with an egg beater until well combined.

  7. Serve very 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.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (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 + chickentop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Asparagus + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 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 pulp
Provides the main vegetable flavour and body of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup by binding with the butter and liquid.
Chicken stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the asparagus flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour when melted into the pot.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture.

The step that matters

Blend the flour into the melted butter. Flour must be cooked briefly in the butter and whisked into the liquid smoothly, or it forms lumps and the soup tastes raw and pasty instead of silky.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

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