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Asparagus Sauce

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and lemon work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 704 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Asparagus Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

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

  2. Drain and chop the asparagus.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the drawn butter with the beaten eggs.

  2. Add the chopped asparagus to the butter mixture.

  3. Season with salt, white pepper, and squeeze in the lemon juice last.

  4. Ensure the butter is hot, but 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. Asparagus + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together704 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Lemon + white peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,658 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Asparagus + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,338 recipes

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Provides the main vegetable flavor and body of the sauce.
Drawn butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Eggs
Thicken the sauce gently when warmed, giving it body and creaminess.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and egg flavors.

The step that matters

Keep the heat gentle once the asparagus is added. Eggs thicken smoothly at moderate heat but scramble or curdle if overheated. Keeping the butter hot without cooking the mixture further lets the eggs set into a smooth sauce.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, 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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