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Creamed Asparagus

A creamy asparagus dish served in hollowed stale rolls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Creamed Asparagus

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Boil the asparagus tips in salted water for 15 minutes, then drain.

Make the creamed sauce

  1. In a double boiler, heat the milk until boiling.

  2. Pour some hot milk onto the beaten eggs, stirring vigorously, then return to the double boiler.

  3. Stir until the mixture begins to thicken, then add the butter and season to taste.

  4. Add the asparagus tips to the sauce.

Prepare the rolls and serve

  1. Cut the tops off the stale rolls and remove the insides, then place them in the oven until crisp.

  2. Fill each roll with the creamed asparagus.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Asparagus + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together650 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Asparagus + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,338 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Asparagus + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Asparagus tips
Form the main vegetable body of the creamed filling.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that thickens into the creamy sauce.
Eggs
Thicken the milk into a custard-like sauce as they set with gentle heat.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel in the sauce.
Stale rolls
Serve as crisp edible containers for the creamed asparagus filling.

The step that matters

Thickening the eggs with the milk. Eggs can scramble if hot milk is added too quickly or the mixture is overheated. Pouring in some hot milk first and stirring vigorously gently raises the egg temperature, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of curdling.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, 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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