Why it works: Asparagus and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,026 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Boiled Asparagus
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Slice the asparagus stalks.
Soak them in cold water for 30 minutes.
Tie the stalks into loose bundles with soft string.
Cook and serve
Cook the bundles in boiling salted water for 30 minutes.
Remove the string and arrange the asparagus on a hot dish.
Serve with drawn or melted butter.
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.
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Asparagus + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 stalks
- Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender when boiled.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth fat coating to the cooked asparagus.
The step that matters
Cook the bundles in boiling salted water for 30 minutes. The water must be at a full boil when the bundles go in, so the stalks cook evenly and become tender without turning mushy or staying fibrous. Salting the water seasons the asparagus as it cooks.
“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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