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Asparagus in Ambush

A dish of boiled asparagus mixed with egg yolks and butter, stuffed into stale rolls and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Asparagus in Ambush

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the asparagus tops and boil them in slightly salted water for 15 minutes, then drain.

  2. Cut the tops off the rolls, remove the crumb, and place them in the oven to crisp, laying each top by the corresponding roll.

Make the filling

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler until boiling, then add the beaten yolks thinned with 2 tablespoons of milk or water.

  2. Stir for 2 minutes until the mixture is creamy, then add the butter, salt, pepper, and cooked asparagus, and remove from heat.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fill the rolls with the asparagus mixture, replace the tops, and serve hot.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Asparagus + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together650 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Asparagus + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Asparagus tops
Provide the main vegetable flavour and bulk of the filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk into a creamy custard as they gently set with heat.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that binds the filling.
Breakfast rolls
Act as hollow edible containers for the filling once the crumb is removed.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the filling.

The step that matters

Stirring the yolk custard. Egg yolks set when heated, so the mixture should be kept gently hot in a double boiler and stirred until creamy. Overheating or boiling it can make the yolks scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy texture instead of a smooth filling.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

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