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Asparagus

A simple dish of boiled asparagus served with toasted bread and melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Asparagus

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Wash and clean the asparagus, cutting away the tough ends.

  2. Tie the asparagus into bundles of equal length.

Cook and serve

  1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and add the asparagus.

  2. Boil briskly until tender.

  3. Dip the toasted bread in the cooking liquid and place it in a dish.

  4. Pour melted butter over the toast and arrange the asparagus on top.

  5. Serve with additional melted butter in a sauce tureen.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Asparagus + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together363 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Asparagus + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its tender, slightly grassy texture when boiled.
Toasted bread
Soaks up the cooking liquid and butter, giving a soft base that holds the asparagus.
Melted butter
Adds richness and moisture, coating the toast and asparagus with fat for flavor.

The step that matters

Boil briskly until tender. Asparagus cooks quickly, and overcooking makes it soft and dull in color, while undercooking leaves it fibrous. Brisk boiling in salted water cooks it evenly and keeps it bright green.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter. 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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