Skip to main content
Main

Saxad of Asparagus

A boiled asparagus dish dressed with mustard, oil, vinegar, lemon, cayenne pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Saxad of Asparagus

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Slice and cut off the heads of the asparagus.

  2. Boil the asparagus until nearly done.

  3. Strain and place them in cold water for five minutes.

  4. Drain the asparagus dry.

Plate and dress

  1. Arrange the asparagus in rows on a dish and place lemon slices around the rim.

  2. Mix the mustard, oil, vinegar, cayenne pepper, and salt together.

  3. Pour the mixture over the asparagus just before serving.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Asparagus + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together213 recipes

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

  3. Asparagus + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together704 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Large asparagus
The main vegetable, cooked briefly so it stays tender-crisp rather than mushy.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps the oil and vinegar stay combined in the dressing.
Oil
Carries flavour and gives the dressing a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the asparagus and balances the oil.

The step that matters

Pour the dressing just before serving. Acid in the vinegar and lemon can soften and dull cooked asparagus over time, so dressing it at the last moment keeps its colour and texture fresh.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, mustard, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, mustard, vinegar, 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesAsparagus SoupAsparagus Soup179 recipesAsparagus SaladAsparagus Salad77 recipesCream of AsparagusCream of Asparagus38 recipes