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Asparagus with Cream Dressing

A dish of boiled asparagus topped with a creamy sauce made from butter, flour, cream, egg, pepper, and salt, served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Asparagus with Cream Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Tie the asparagus stalks in bunches with the heads facing the same way.

  2. Cut the stalks to equal length.

  3. In a pot, bring well-salted water to a boil and cook the asparagus until tender.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter, then stir in the flour to make a roux.

  2. Add the cream and cook until smooth.

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

Serve

  1. Drain the asparagus and arrange it neatly on slices of toast.

  2. Pour the cream sauce over the asparagus and serve.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its tender, green vegetable texture.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and, with flour, forms the roux that thickens it.
Flour
Thickens the cream sauce when cooked with butter into a roux.
Egg
Stirred in off the heat, it adds richness and body to the sauce.
Cream
Forms the base of the sauce, giving it richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Toast
Provides a crisp base that holds the asparagus and soaks up some of the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the egg in off the heat. Egg proteins set and can curdle or scramble if the sauce is too hot, so it should be removed from heat before the egg is stirred in.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg, cream, 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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