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Ambushed Asparagus

A custard of boiled asparagus, eggs, milk, and butter baked inside stale biscuits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and biscuit share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Ambushed Asparagus

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus and biscuits

  1. Cut off the tender tops of the asparagus and boil them until tender, then drain.

  2. Prepare the stale biscuits or rolls by cutting off the tops and scooping out the insides.

  3. Place the biscuits in the oven to crisp, along with the tops.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, heat the milk until boiling.

  2. Whisk the eggs in a bowl, then gradually add them to the boiling milk, stirring constantly until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the butter, salt, and pepper.

  4. Add the minced asparagus to the custard mixture and stir gently.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill the prepared biscuits with the asparagus custard, replace the tops, and return to the oven for 3 minutes.

  2. Serve hot on a dish.

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. Asparagus + biscuittop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together25 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Biscuit + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together841 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Asparagus + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together650 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard as they thicken in the hot milk, giving it body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which thickens when combined with egg.
Asparagus
Provides the main vegetable flavour and body of the custard filling.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the custard.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs to the boiling milk. If eggs are poured in too quickly or not stirred constantly, they can scramble instead of forming a smooth custard. Gradual addition with constant stirring lets the egg proteins set evenly.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (biscuit, milk, egg, butter, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, milk, egg, butter, pepper. 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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