Skip to main content
Main

Asparagus and Seakale

A boiled dish of asparagus and sea kale served with a dressing of oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt.

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

Why it works: Asparagus and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,968 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Asparagus and Seakale

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and tie asparagus and sea kale in small bundles with tape, ensuring the heads are level.

  2. Trim the stalks to the same length with a sharp knife.

Cook

  1. Boil water in a deep saucepan and add a good amount of coarse sea salt and a little sugar.

  2. Place the bundles in the boiling water, with the heads above the water for steaming.

  3. Boil for 30 to 40 minutes until the stalks are tender and the heads are cooked by steam.

  4. Carefully drain the bundles and remove the tape.

Serve

  1. Serve with Dutch sauce or a dressing of oil, vinegar, pepper, and 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. Asparagus + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,968 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Asparagus + vinegartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together439 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  5. Asparagus + sugartop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together488 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Stalks cook until tender while the heads are gently steamed above the water.
Seakale
Stalks cook until tender while the heads are gently steamed above the water.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the dressing, balancing the richness of the oil.
Oil
Adds fat and smooth mouthfeel to the dressing.

The step that matters

Keep the heads above the water. Only the stalks should sit in the boiling water. The heads cook by steam, so submerging them can make them waterlogged and mushy instead of tender.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cabbagefits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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

Asparagus SoupAsparagus Soup179 recipesAsparagus SaladAsparagus Salad77 recipesCream of AsparagusCream of Asparagus38 recipesBoiled AsparagusBoiled Asparagus27 recipes