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Asparagus Salad

A salad of cooked asparagus, hard‑boiled eggs, celery, walnuts, served on watercress and topped with mayonnaise.

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

Why it works: Asparagus and watercress share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Asparagus Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook the asparagus and let it cool in the cooking liquid.

  2. In a bowl, combine the cooled asparagus, sliced eggs, diced celery, and walnut pieces.

Serve

  1. Serve the mixture in nests made of fresh watercress.

  2. Top each serving with a generous spoonful of mayonnaise.

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 + watercresstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together35 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Walnut + watercresstop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together71 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Celery + watercresstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together167 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Asparagus + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together378 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Provides the main tender-crisp vegetable body and fresh green flavour of the salad.
Hard boiled eggs
Add creamy richness and protein-based body that gives the salad substance.
Celery
Contributes crisp texture and a mild, fresh crunch against the softer ingredients.
English walnut kernels
Add crunch and a nutty, slightly oily flavour that contrasts the soft components.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and moisture, binding the flavours together and making the salad creamy.

The step that matters

Let the asparagus cool in the cooking liquid. Asparagus cooked too long turns soft and olive-drab, and it keeps cooking from residual heat if left hot. Cooling it gently in the liquid helps it hold a tender-crisp texture and bright colour before it is mixed with the other ingredients.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (asparagus, egg, walnut, watercress):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, egg, walnut, watercress. 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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