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Cream of Asparagus Soup

A creamy soup made from boiled asparagus, milk, flour, butter, and cream, seasoned with salt, pepper, and a pinch of sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Cream of Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cream of Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Boil the asparagus heads and stalks separately.

  2. When the stalks are soft, mash and rub them through a coarse sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler until scalding hot.

  2. Thicken the milk with the flour and butter mixed to a smooth paste.

  3. Add the water from boiling the asparagus and the pulp.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and a pinch of sugar.

  5. Stir in the cream and the asparagus heads.

  6. Heat the soup thoroughly and serve.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Asparagus + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,968 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the soup and gives it a creamy body when heated.
Flour
Thickens the milk with butter to give the soup body.
Butter
Combines with flour to form a paste that thickens the milk and adds richness.
Asparagus
Provides the main flavour and, as pulp, thickens and colours the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Thickening the milk with the flour and butter paste. Flour must be mixed smoothly with butter before going into hot milk, otherwise it clumps. Starch swells and thickens the liquid as it heats, so the milk should be heated thoroughly for the flour to lose its raw taste and give a smooth soup.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, pepper, sugar, 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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