Skip to main content
Main

Cream Asparagus, Countess

Creamed asparagus with white broth, cream sauce, butter, and egg yolks, garnished with parsley, celery, and asparagus tops.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream Asparagus, Countess

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the tender parts of the asparagus and parboil them.

  2. Immerse the asparagus in cold water, then drain.

Cook and strain

  1. Put the asparagus in a saucepan with boiling white broth to cook.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, and add the bundle of parsley and celery.

  3. Once cooked, add the cream sauce, nutmeg, and sugar.

  4. Pound the mixture through a colander, then rub through a fine sieve.

  5. Return to the saucepan to keep warm without boiling.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, add the butter and cream mixed with the egg yolks, stirring until the butter melts.

  2. Serve garnished with asparagus tops and spinach for color.

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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Asparagus + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together378 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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 and gives the dish its green vegetable flavor.
Cream sauce
Provides the base body that holds the purée together.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel and silky texture.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture gently and add richness when heated.

The step that matters

Keep the mixture below boiling after adding the egg yolks. Egg yolk proteins set when heated. If the mixture boils after the yolks are added, it can curdle or turn grainy, so it should only be kept warm.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, parsley, celery, cream, sauce, nutmeg, sugar):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, parsley, celery, cream, sauce, nutmeg, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Asparagus SoupAsparagus Soup179 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesAsparagus SaladAsparagus Salad77 recipesCream of AsparagusCream of Asparagus38 recipes