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Asparagus Salad, Plain

A salad of blanched asparagus topped with parsley, vinegar, and olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Salad, Plain

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare ½ pound of asparagus tops and cut them into 1‑inch lengths.

  2. Cook and drain the asparagus, then place it in a salad bowl.

Dress and serve

  1. Season with salt and pepper.

  2. Add chopped parsley or chives, vinegar, and olive oil.

  3. Mix carefully to avoid breaking the asparagus tops.

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. Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

  3. Asparagus + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,096 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus tops
Form the main body of the salad and carry the texture of the dish.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness, coating the asparagus and carrying flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the oil.

The step that matters

Mix carefully to avoid breaking the asparagus tops. Cooked asparagus is tender and its tips break easily under rough stirring. Gentle folding keeps the spears intact and the salad looking neat while the dressing still coats every piece.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, parsley, vinegar, olive):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, parsley, vinegar, olive. 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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