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Asparagus on Toast

A dish of boiled asparagus served on buttered toast with a sauce made from asparagus water, flour, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Asparagus on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Tie the asparagus stalks in a bundle, securing them in two places with the heads all facing the same way.

  2. Cut off the tough ends of the stalks to make them uniform in length.

  3. Boil the asparagus slowly in slightly salted water until tender.

Make the toast

  1. While the asparagus is boiling, prepare thin slices of toast.

  2. Quickly dip the toast in the asparagus water.

  3. Butter the toast lightly.

  4. Place the toast on the serving dish.

Assemble and serve

  1. Lift the asparagus from the water using two forks by the strings.

  2. Place the asparagus on a platter.

  3. Distribute the asparagus evenly over the toast.

  4. Heap the asparagus neatly.

  5. Butter the dish generously.

  6. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  7. Serve the dish.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat ½ pint of the asparagus water in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in 1 tablespoon of flour.

  3. Stir in 1 tablespoon of butter until a cream forms when the water is boiling.

  4. Add salt and pepper to taste.

  5. Pour the sauce over the toast and asparagus.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Asparagus + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together363 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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
Forms the main body of the dish and carries its tender, vegetal flavour.
Bread
Provides a crisp, absorbent base that soaks up the asparagus water and butter.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the toast, dish and sauce.
Flour
Thickens the asparagus water into a smooth, creamy sauce.
Asparagus water
Gives the toast and sauce a moist, savoury asparagus flavour.

The step that matters

Stir in the butter while the water is boiling. Flour must be cooked in hot liquid for its starch to swell and thicken the sauce. Stirring it smooth first prevents lumps, and adding the butter at the boil helps the sauce emulsify into a cream.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, pepper, flour, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, pepper, flour, sauce. 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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