Skip to main content
Main

Asparagus Soup

A creamy soup made with cooked asparagus, milk, butter, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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. Place the asparagus in a pot and cover with cold water.

  2. Cook until very tender.

  3. Reserve a few tips for serving.

  4. Mash the rest of the asparagus with the cooking water through a strainer.

Make the soup

  1. Scald the milk in a separate pot.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan.

  3. Stir in the flour and seasonings.

  4. Combine the butter mixture with the scalded milk.

  5. Add the asparagus pulp and reserved tips to the soup.

  6. Serve hot.

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

Milk
Forms the creamy body of the soup and adds richness and mild sweetness.
Asparagus
Provides the main flavor and, once mashed, the thick vegetable body of the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries flavor through the roux base.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk mixture into a smooth, body-giving base.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour and seasonings. Cooking the flour in melted butter for a short time removes its raw taste and lets it thicken evenly. Adding the milk too early or too quickly can leave lumps.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

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

You might also like

Asparagus SaladAsparagus Salad77 recipesCream of AsparagusCream of Asparagus38 recipesBoiled AsparagusBoiled Asparagus27 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes