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Asparagus

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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. Scrape the asparagus stalks until they look white and cut them evenly.

  2. Soak the asparagus in water and bring a stewpan of salted water to a boil.

Cook

  1. Tie the asparagus in bundles and boil until slightly tender, being careful not to overcook.

  2. Cut a slice of bread about half an inch thick and toast it until brown on both sides.

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

Serve

  1. Pour a little butter over the toast and arrange the asparagus around it with the tips facing outward.

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. Butter + breadtop 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
Is the main vegetable, cooked gently until slightly tender while keeping its shape and texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour over the toast and asparagus.
Bread
Forms the base that soaks up the cooking liquid and browns when toasted for flavour.

The step that matters

Boil the asparagus until slightly tender. Asparagus turns dull, soft and mushy within a few extra minutes of boiling. Stopping when it is just tender keeps its bright colour and firm bite.

Swap the asparagus

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

  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 butter, bread. 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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