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Asparagus Sauce

A sauce made from boiled asparagus, butter, optional shallot and parsley, finished with white sauce or cream and optional egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Asparagus Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the asparagus and boil it in salted water for 15 to 20 minutes until tender.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, melt the butter and sauté the chopped shallot and parsley until fragrant, if using.

  2. Add the cooked asparagus to the pan and toss gently.

  3. Just before serving, stir in the white sauce or thick cream and the egg yolk, if desired.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Asparagus + shallottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Asparagus + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together566 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Shallot + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Forms the main body of the sauce and gives its green flavour and tender texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and giving the sauce a smooth mouthfeel.
White sauce or thick cream
Adds body and creaminess, thickening the sauce and softening its texture.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce when stirred in, adding richness and a silkier body.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolk just before serving. Egg yolk thickens when heated but can scramble and curdle if it is overheated or boiled. Adding it off the heat, just before serving, gives a smooth, thickened sauce.

Swap the shallot

The recipe marks shallot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (asparagus, butter, parsley, sauce, egg):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Leekfits less well
  4. Spinachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, butter, parsley, sauce, egg. 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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