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Puree Oe Asparagus a LA Conde

A puree of asparagus, spinach, parsley, and green onions mixed with velouté sauce, sugar, nutmeg, and butter, served with croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Puree Oe Asparagus a LA Conde

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Break off the heads of the asparagus so they snap easily.

  2. Rinse them in cold water with spinach, parsley, and green onions.

  3. In a large stewpan, bring boiling water with a handful of salt to a fast boil.

  4. Drain the asparagus mixture and add it to the boiling water.

  5. Cook until tender.

  6. Drain again and rinse with cold water.

Make the puree

  1. In a medium stewpan, combine the drained vegetables with velouté sauce, sugar, nutmeg, and salt.

  2. Stir over brisk heat for 3 minutes.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve into a large dish.

  4. Chill in the larder to retain color and flavor.

  5. Heat the puree until nearly boiling.

  6. Stir in butter and glaze before serving with croutons.

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 + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together274 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Spinach + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Spinach + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,025 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

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 and flavor of the puree once cooked and sieved.
Velouté sauce
Adds body and creaminess, giving the puree a smooth, thick texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy finish when stirred into the hot puree.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness that balances the vegetable flavor.

The step that matters

Cook the asparagus until tender, then cool it promptly. Overcooking dulls the bright green color and softens flavor, while leaving the vegetables in hot water too long keeps cooking them. Rinsing in cold water stops the cooking and helps retain the green color.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (asparagus, spinach, parsley, sauce, sugar, nutmeg, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, spinach, parsley, sauce, sugar, nutmeg, 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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