Skip to main content
Main

Asparagus Tops, with Truffles, Imperial

A dish of sautéed asparagus tops served with julienned truffles and a reduced Madeira wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Asparagus Tops, with Truffles, Imperial

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

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

  2. Cook the asparagus until tender, then place them in a flat saucepan with butter.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper, and warm thoroughly.

Assemble and serve

  1. Transfer the asparagus to a serving dish, leaving space in the center.

  2. Fill the center with the julienne truffles.

  3. Reduce the Madeira wine and pour it over the truffles.

  4. Sprinkle chopped parsley over the dish before serving.

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

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

  2. Asparagus + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together566 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Asparagus + truffletop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together141 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus tops
Form the main bulk of the dish and provide its tender, vegetal texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel as it coats the warm asparagus.
Truffles
Contribute a concentrated earthy aroma that defines the dish's flavor.
Madeira wine
Reduced to a concentrated sauce that adds sweetness and depth to the truffles.

The step that matters

Reducing the Madeira wine. Reducing concentrates the wine's sugars and flavors as water evaporates. Cooking it too briefly leaves a thin, harsh sauce, while cooking it too long can make it syrupy and overly sweet.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, truffle, madeira wine, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, truffle, madeira wine, parsley. 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 recipesAsparagus SaladAsparagus Salad77 recipesCream of AsparagusCream of Asparagus38 recipesBoiled AsparagusBoiled Asparagus27 recipes