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Asparagus Soup

A soup made from boiled asparagus, stock, milk, butter, flour, and seasoned with salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Cut tips off the asparagus and boil the stalks in the stock with salt and pepper for about 1 hour.

  2. Strain the mixture and add the asparagus tips.

  3. Boil the milk, thickening it with the creamed butter and flour.

  4. Mix the thickened milk with the stock.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, add the minced parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Asparagus + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together566 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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 flavor and body of the soup.
Butter
Creamed with flour to form a roux that thickens the milk.
Flour
Thickens the milk when cooked with the creamed butter.
Milk
Forms the creamy base that is thickened and blended into the stock.
Veal or chicken stock
Serves as the liquid base that carries the asparagus flavor.

The step that matters

Thickening the milk. Flour must be cooked with the butter and then heated in the milk so the starch swells and thickens the liquid smoothly. Adding it raw or unevenly can leave lumps or a pasty taste.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, veal, parsley, flour, butter, milk. 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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