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Asparagus, Spanish Style

A dish of boiled asparagus topped with poached eggs and served with vinaigrette sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,338 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Asparagus, Spanish Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare 2 dozen bunches of asparagus as in the previous recipe.

  2. Cook the asparagus and drain them on a napkin.

  3. Once dry, place the asparagus on a dish.

Poach and serve

  1. Poach one egg for each person in the asparagus water.

  2. Serve the poached eggs alongside the asparagus with a bowl of vinaigrette sauce.

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

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

  2. Asparagus + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together573 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Egg + saucetop 39% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,895 recipes

Egg and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,895 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 vegetable base of the dish, providing bulk and a fresh, grassy flavor.
Eggs
Soft-poached yolks add richness and a creamy sauce-like texture to the asparagus.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Horseradishfits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Asparagusthe original
  4. Welsh onionfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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