Why it works: Asparagus and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,026 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Asparagus
Ingredients
Directions
Wash and clean the asparagus, cutting away the tough ends.
Tie the asparagus into bundles of equal length.
Boil water with a little salt and add the asparagus.
Boil briskly until tender.
Dip a round of toasted bread in the cooking liquid and place it in a dish.
Pour melted butter over the toast and arrange the asparagus on top.
Serve with additional melted butter in a sauce tureen.
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 + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,026 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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