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Asparagus a LA Vinaigeette

A chilled asparagus salad dressed with oil, vinegar, mustard, salt, cayenne, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 213 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Asparagus a LA Vinaigeette

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the asparagus

  1. Boil the asparagus until tender.

Dress and chill

  1. While hot, pour the dressing made of salad oil, vinegar, mustard, salt, cayenne, and sugar over the asparagus.

  2. Cover the dish tightly and refrigerate until cold.

Serve

  1. Serve chilled as a salad or side dish with cold lamb or chicken.

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 + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together213 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 carries the dressing.
Salad oil
Adds fat and richness, and carries flavor through the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the oil.
French mustard
Helps emulsify the oil and vinegar and adds a sharp, pungent flavor.
Sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that softens the vinegar's sharpness.

The step that matters

Pour the dressing over the asparagus while it is hot. Hot asparagus is more porous and absorbs the dressing more readily, so the flavor penetrates better than if it were added after cooling.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, mustard, pepper, sugar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, mustard, pepper, sugar. 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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