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Asparagus Sauce

A sauce made with boiled asparagus, butter, eggs, salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Asparagus Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Boil the asparagus in a small amount of salted water until tender.

  2. Drain and chop the asparagus.

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, combine the hot drawn butter with the beaten eggs.

  2. Add the chopped asparagus, salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

  3. Do not cook after adding the asparagus.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Asparagus + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together704 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Asparagus + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,338 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
Provides the main flavour and green body of the sauce, with pieces suspended in it.
Eggs
Thicken the warm butter into a creamy emulsion as they gently set.
Drawn butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and egg flavours.

The step that matters

Do not cook after adding the asparagus. Egg yolks thicken at around 160°F and curdle if overheated, so the sauce should be kept warm, not returned to heat, or it will turn grainy.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

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