Why it works: Asparagus and leek share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 73 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓
Cream of Asparagus, Comtesse
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the asparagus
Scrape and wash the asparagus.
Cut off the tips to 1.5 inches long and set them aside for garnish.
Cut the remaining asparagus into short pieces.
Braise and simmer
Place the pieces in a saucepan with butter, leek, bay leaves, and parsley.
Braise for 15 minutes.
Cover the asparagus with chicken broth and simmer until tender.
Strain off the broth.
Make the soup
In the same saucepan, make a roux with flour and add the strained broth, plus more to reach the desired soup quantity.
Puree the asparagus and add it back to the soup.
Simmer for 30 minutes until the tips are tender.
Skim the soup.
Finish with Bechamel sauce.
Strain through a fine sieve, add the tips, and serve with croutons.
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.
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Asparagus + leektop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together73 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Leek + parsleytop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together759 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Asparagus + parsleytop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together566 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Leek + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together328 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Asparagus + chickentop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together539 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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 and flavor of the soup once pureed.
- Butter
- Adds richness and carries flavor during the initial braise.
- Flour
- Thickens the broth into a smooth, body-rich soup as a roux.
- Chicken broth
- Provides the liquid base that cooks the asparagus and forms the soup.
- Bechamel sauce
- Adds creaminess and smooth body to the finished soup.
The step that matters
Making the roux with flour. Flour must be cooked briefly in the butter before liquid is added. Stirring it smooth and cooking it removes raw starch taste and prevents lumps, which would spoil the texture of the soup.
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (asparagus, butter, leek, chicken, flour, sauce):
- Capersfits better
- Tarragonfits better
- Garlicfits about as well
- Parsleythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, butter, leek, chicken, flour, sauce. 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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