Why it works: Asparagus and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,026 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Asparagus
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the asparagus
Boil the asparagus in water until tender.
Assemble and serve
Place the dry toast on a dish or small platter.
Lay the cooked asparagus on the toast.
Add butter to the boiling water, then pour it over the toast and asparagus.
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.
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Asparagus + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,026 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Asparagus
- Main vegetable; boiling softens its fibres until it is tender enough to eat.
- Toast
- Provides a firm base that holds the asparagus and soaks up the buttery liquid.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, coating the asparagus and toast with flavour.
The step that matters
Boil the asparagus until tender. Asparagus cooks quickly. Overcooking breaks down its cell structure and dulls its green colour, leaving it soft and limp instead of tender with some bite.
“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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