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Asparagus Tops, with Sauce

A sautéed asparagus dish finished with a butter, egg yolk, and cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Asparagus Tops, with Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the asparagus tops by cutting them into 1.5‑inch pieces.

Cook the asparagus

  1. In a flat saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the asparagus and toss gently until warmed.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and sugar, and let it boil briefly.

Finish and serve

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks with cream and a small piece of butter.

  2. Add the egg mixture to the asparagus, stirring gently without boiling.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  5. Asparagus + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus tops
Forms the main body of the dish and carries the sauce.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce through gentle heat, giving it a creamy richness.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, helping the egg sauce stay smooth.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, helping the asparagus warm evenly and taste rich.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture without boiling. Egg yolks thicken at gentle heat but curdle and turn grainy if they get too hot. Stir gently and keep the pan off a rolling boil once the egg mixture goes in.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, nutmeg, sugar, egg, cream. 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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