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Asparagus with Cream

A simple dish of boiled asparagus topped with a lightly thickened cream dressing seasoned with salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Asparagus with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Cut off all the tough parts of the asparagus.

  2. Place the asparagus in a pan and cover with boiling water.

  3. Cook slowly until tender.

Make the dressing and serve

  1. Prepare a few pieces of toasted bread.

  2. In a separate bowl, slightly thicken the cream and season with salt, pepper, and butter.

  3. Pour the cream dressing over the asparagus and toast.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Asparagus + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together363 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 dish and becomes tender when cooked slowly in water.
Cream
Thickened lightly to form a rich, smooth dressing that coats the asparagus.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the cream dressing.
Toasted bread
Provides a crisp, browned base that holds the creamed asparagus.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until tender. Gentle cooking softens the fibrous asparagus evenly without turning it mushy or leaving tough spots. Cooking too hard can overcook the tips before the stalks are done.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, cream, pepper, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, cream, pepper, 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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