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Cream of Asparagus Soup

A creamy soup made from asparagus, onion, water, butter, milk, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Cream of Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Cream of Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Cook the asparagus and onion in water until the asparagus is tender.

  2. Remove the onion.

  3. Strain the asparagus.

Make the cream sauce

  1. In a separate pan, blend the flour and butter.

  2. Gradually add the milk to the flour mixture.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil for five minutes.

Combine and finish

  1. Add the strained asparagus pulp.

  2. Heat through.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Asparagus + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,212 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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
Provides the main flavor and, once strained into pulp, the body of the soup.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat, adding richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth white sauce as it cooks with the fat.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that gives the soup its body and mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Adding the milk to the flour mixture. Adding liquid gradually while blending keeps the flour dispersed. Dumping it in at once can leave lumps that are hard to smooth out once the sauce thickens.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

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