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Asparagus Sauce, for Lamb Cutlets

A sauce made from asparagus, veal gravy, egg yolks, butter, and lemon juice served with lamb cutlets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and lemon work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 704 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Asparagus Sauce, for Lamb Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Wash the asparagus well and drain.

  2. Bring water and salt to a boil in a large pot.

  3. Add the asparagus and cook until tender, about 10 to 15 minutes.

  4. Drain the asparagus in a hot strainer.

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, mix the veal gravy with the egg yolks and season with salt and cayenne or white pepper.

  2. Alternatively, mix the melted butter with lemon juice.

  3. Add the drained asparagus to the sauce just 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.

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 + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together704 recipes

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

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. White pepper + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,658 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Asparagus + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,338 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
Provides the main vegetable flavour and body of the sauce once it is cooked and added.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set gently with heat and add richness.
Veal gravy
Gives the sauce its savoury base and body.
Melted butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture and mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the richness of the butter and egg.

The step that matters

Add the drained asparagus to the sauce just before serving. Holding the sauce after the asparagus goes in lets its heat and acid keep cooking the yolks, which can curdle or thicken too far. Adding the asparagus at the end keeps the sauce smooth and the vegetable bright green.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (asparagus, veal, egg, butter, lemon):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, veal, egg, butter, lemon. 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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