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Asperges Aux Petits Pois Aa Roux

Blanched asparagus served with a roux-based sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Asperges Aux Petits Pois Aa Roux

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the asparagus and place it in a pot of boiling water with salt. Blanch for a few minutes.

  2. Drain the asparagus and place it in a stewpan with butter, parsley, and onions.

Make the sauce

  1. Add flour, water, salt, pepper, and sugar. Simmer until reduced.

  2. Move the stewpan to the side of the heat.

  3. Stir in the egg yolks and briefly return to the heat.

  4. Taste and adjust seasoning.

Serve

  1. Serve the asparagus dressed on a plate.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

Asparagus
Is the main vegetable, cooked by blanching and then gently simmered in the stewpan.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a roux-based sauce as it cooks and reduces.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping to carry flavour and coat the asparagus.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it a smooth, creamy texture when gently heated.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks off the heat. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heating, but if the sauce gets too hot they can curdle and turn grainy. Moving the pan off the heat before stirring them in helps keep the sauce smooth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, butter, parsley, flour, pepper, 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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