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Asparagus, Sauce Hollandaise

Asparagus boiled and served with hot Hollandaise sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and sauce work together. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 573 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Asparagus, Sauce Hollandaise

6 bunches
Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape and wash the asparagus carefully.

  2. Tie them into 6 equal bunches with the heads arranged in one direction.

  3. Chop off the ends evenly.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil in salted water for 20 to 22 minutes until done.

  2. Lift out and drain thoroughly on a cloth.

  3. Lay nicely on a dish with a folded napkin.

  4. Untie and serve with the hot Hollandaise sauce in a separate bowl.

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 + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together573 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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, with its tender texture cooked through by boiling.
Hollandaise sauce
Adds richness and fat, with a tangy, buttery flavour that complements the mild asparagus.

The step that matters

Boil in salted water for 20 to 22 minutes until done. Overcooking makes asparagus soft and dull in colour, while undercooking leaves it fibrous. Checking for a tender stalk near the base ensures an even, pleasant texture throughout the bunch.

“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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