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Asparagus Soup

A creamy soup made with asparagus, milk, cream, stock, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Cut off the tips of the asparagus and place them in cold water.

  2. Slice the remaining asparagus, discarding the hard ends, and boil in water until tender.

  3. Press the boiled asparagus through a sieve.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, melt the butter, then add the flour to thicken the milk.

  2. Stir in the milk and cream, and bring to a boil.

  3. Add the asparagus tips, stock, and seasoning, then simmer for about 10 minutes until the tips are cooked but not broken.

  4. Serve with or without fried croutons, according to your taste.

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.

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.

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

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Asparagus + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Forms the body and flavour of the soup once boiled and pressed through a sieve.
Butter
Melted fat that cooks the flour into a roux for the base.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, body-giving base when cooked with butter.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that the flour thickens.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.
Stock
Adds savoury depth and liquid to the soup.

The step that matters

Simmering the asparagus tips. Simmering for about 10 minutes cooks the tips through while keeping them intact. Boiling hard or simmering too long breaks them apart and clouds the soup.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (asparagus, milk, cream, flour, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, milk, cream, flour, butter. 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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