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Asparagus Soup

A creamy soup made with blanched asparagus, stock, butter, flour, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Remove the tough parts from the asparagus and set aside the tender points.

  2. Blanch the remaining asparagus in boiling salted water for 3 minutes, then drain.

Make the soup

  1. In a 3-quart saucepan, melt the butter and flour together, then add the blanched asparagus and stir for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the stock and simmer until the asparagus is cooked.

  3. Strain the mixture, puree the asparagus, and return it to the soup.

  4. Boil for 15-20 minutes, skimming if necessary.

Finish and serve

  1. Boil the asparagus points in salted water.

  2. Pour the soup into a tureen, add the asparagus points, and mix in the cream and remaining butter before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Asparagus + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Asparagus + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Provides the main flavour and body of the soup once pureed.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Flour
Cooked with the butter to form a roux that thickens the soup.
White stock
Forms the liquid base that the asparagus simmers in and becomes the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness to the soup at the end.

The step that matters

Simmer and puree the asparagus until smooth. Asparagus must be fully cooked before pureeing, or the soup will taste grassy and have fibrous, uneven texture. Straining after pureeing removes remaining fibres for a smooth result.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream. 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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