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Asparagus-Pease for the Second Course, Entremets

A second course entremet of asparagus sautéed in butter with parsley, green onions, mint, and a sweetened sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,198 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Asparagus-Pease for the Second Course, Entremets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Pick and cut young asparagus into small, equal bits, discarding woody parts.

  2. Boil asparagus in salted water, then drain and dry with a cloth.

Make the sauce

  1. Fry asparagus in butter with parsley, green onions, and mint.

  2. Dredge flour over the mixture, add sugar, and moisten with boiling water.

  3. Boil quickly, then remove the parsley and onion bundle.

  4. Thicken the sauce with beaten egg yolks mixed with cream or melted butter, and add a little salt.

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. Parsley + minttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,198 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Asparagus + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together566 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Asparagus + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,212 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Young asparagus
Forms the main body of the dish and supplies its vegetable texture.
Butter
Fat that fries the asparagus and carries the herb flavours.
Flour
Dusted over the mixture to thicken the liquid as it boils.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set with gentle heat, giving it body.
Cream or melted butter
Enriches the sauce and adds richness and smoothness to the yolks.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with egg yolks. Egg yolks set when heated, but at high heat they can curdle and turn grainy. Add the yolks mixed with cream or butter and keep the heat gentle so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (asparagus, butter, parsley, onion, flour, sugar, egg):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, butter, parsley, onion, flour, sugar, egg. 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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