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Asparagus with Orange Sauce

A simple asparagus dish topped with a butter and orange juice sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,968 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Asparagus with Orange Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the asparagus

  1. Trim the asparagus and cook in boiling salted water until tender.

Make the orange sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt butter and add orange juice.

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve

  1. Pour the orange sauce over the cooked asparagus and serve.

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

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

  2. Orange + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Asparagus + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together94 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 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
Forms the main vegetable base that the sauce is poured over.
Orange juice
Adds acidity and sweetness that brighten the buttery sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and a smooth, rich texture to the sauce.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, butter, 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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