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Puree Asparagus, Royal

A creamy purée of boiled asparagus, butter, broth, and egg yolks, seasoned with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Puree Asparagus, Royal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Wash the asparagus and parboil for 4 minutes.

  2. Immerse the asparagus in cold water to retain color, then drain.

  3. In a saucepan, melt the butter and toss the asparagus gently over heat.

  4. Season the asparagus with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and a little sugar.

Cook and purée

  1. Add enough broth to cook the asparagus thoroughly along with the parsley.

  2. Boil until tender, then pound the asparagus through a colander.

  3. Combine the purée with thickened broth in a saucepan and heat, stirring until it boils.

  4. Reduce heat and simmer for 25 minutes, skimming as needed.

  5. Strain through a fine sieve and keep warm in the saucepan.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, add butter and cream mixed with the yolks of the eggs, stirring well.

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. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 of the purée and gives it its vegetable flavor and color.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished purée.
Thickened broth
Supplies the liquid base and savory flavor while thickening the purée.
Cream
Adds richness and body, softening the texture of the purée.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the purée when stirred in, giving it a smooth, velvety body.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and cream mixture. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the purée is too hot when they are stirred in, they can curdle and turn grainy. Stir well and keep the heat gentle.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, nutmeg, sugar, chicken, parsley, 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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