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Cream of Asparagus Soup

A creamy soup made from boiled asparagus, milk, butter, flour, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Cream of Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cream of Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the asparagus

  1. Boil the asparagus in salted water for 1 hour until tender.

  2. Drain through a colander, pressing to extract all the juice.

  3. Return the liquid to the heat and keep it hot.

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and flour together.

  2. Pour in the milk and stir until smooth.

  3. Slowly add the asparagus liquid and the boiled asparagus tips.

  4. Gradually pour the hot soup over the beaten egg yolks, stirring constantly.

  5. Return to the heat for 30 seconds, season to taste, and serve.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Asparagus + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Provides the main flavour and the body of the soup through its tender pieces and cooking liquid.
Butter and flour
Melted together to form a roux that thickens the milk into a smooth base.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that carries the asparagus flavour.
Egg yolks
Enrich the soup and thicken it gently when heated with care.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken by coagulating when heated, so the hot soup must be poured in slowly while stirring constantly. Adding it too fast, or letting it boil after, can scramble the yolks and leave the soup grainy.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, egg. 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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