Why it works: Asparagus and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 274 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓
Asparagus Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the asparagus
Cut the tops from the asparagus, about ½ inch long, and set aside.
Boil the remaining asparagus and cut off all the tender portions.
Rub the tender asparagus through a sieve and add a little salt.
Make the soup
Warm the soup stock in a pot.
In a separate pan, heat the butter and slowly stir in the flour to cook it.
Add the asparagus pulp to the soup stock and the butter‑flour mixture.
Boil slowly for 15 minutes, stirring in the cream.
Prepare the spinach by pounding it, adding a few drops of water, and straining the juice.
Add the spinach juice to the soup for coloring.
Finish and serve
Just before serving, add the boiled asparagus tops.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Asparagus + spinachtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together274 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + spinachtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,564 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Asparagus + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together936 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Asparagus
- Provides the main flavour and the smooth body of the soup once rubbed into a pulp.
- Soup stock
- Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the soup.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, and forms the base for the flour thickener.
- Flour
- Cooked in the butter, it thickens the soup and gives it a fuller texture.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a softer, silkier mouthfeel to the finished soup.
- Prepared spinach
- Its juice is added only for colour, giving the soup a green tint.
The step that matters
Cooking the flour in the butter. Stirring the flour slowly into melted butter and cooking it lets the starch swell evenly without lumps, so the soup thickens smoothly rather than turning pasty or grainy.
Swap the asparagus
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, cream, spinach):
- Leekfits better
- Chivefits better
- Shallotfits about as well
- Asparagusthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream, spinach. 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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