Why it works: Asparagus and flour work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 936 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Asparagus Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the asparagus in enough water to cover it.
Remove the asparagus with a skimmer.
Serve the asparagus on toast or cut it into small pieces and leave it in the soup.
Add sweet milk to the soup and thicken with flour or corn starch until it reaches a creamy consistency.
Season with coarse sea salt to taste.
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.
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Asparagus + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together936 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Asparagus + milktop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together650 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 body of the soup once boiled and cut into pieces.
- Sweet milk
- Adds richness and creaminess to the broth.
- Flour or corn starch
- Thickens the soup to a creamy consistency as it heats.
The step that matters
Thicken with flour or corn starch. Starch must be fully dispersed in liquid before or while heating, otherwise it clumps. Once heated, starch granules swell and thicken the soup, so the soup should be stirred and kept warm until it reaches the desired creaminess.
Swap the asparagus
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour):
- Arrowrootfits better
- Potatofits better
- Sweet potatofits better
- Asparagusthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour. 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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