Skip to main content

Asparagus Tops, for Large Cold Garniture

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Turnip and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Asparagus Tops, for Large Cold Garniture

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Slice turnips into 3/8-inch thick rounds.

  2. Use a round cutter to cut out 2.5-inch diameter rings from the turnips, removing the center to create a ring 1.25 inches in diameter.

  3. Parboil the turnip rings for 2 minutes, then immerse them in cold water.

  4. Dry the turnip rings on a napkin.

  5. Fill each ring with cooked asparagus tops, cut to 2-2.5 inches long.

  6. Arrange the filled rings in a tin pan so they stand upright.

  7. Chill on ice until cold, then cover with aspic jelly.

  8. Optionally, alternate with carrot rings.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + asparagustop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Asparagus + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together571 recipes

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

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

Swap the carrot

The recipe marks carrot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, asparagus):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Cauliflowerfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, asparagus. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

You might also like

Asparagus SoupAsparagus Soup179 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesAsparagus SaladAsparagus Salad77 recipesTurnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipes