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Dish with Asparagus Sandwiches

A sandwich made with asparagus puree, mayonnaise, aspic jelly, whipped cream, and topped with egg whites and tomato slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and tomato work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 313 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Dish with Asparagus Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Rub the cold asparagus through a sieve.

  2. Add the mayonnaise and aspic jelly, ensuring the jelly is liquid but not warm.

  3. When the mixture begins to set, fold in the whipped cream and season to taste.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread the asparagus puree between slices of bread to make sandwiches.

  2. Arrange the sandwiches on a dish around a crisp salad.

  3. Decorate with rings of hard-boiled egg whites and slices of tomato.

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 + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together313 recipes

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

  2. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sauce + tomatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Asparagus + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Asparagus + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together573 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus points
Provides the main flavour and the green puree that forms the filling.
Whipped cream
Adds lightness and a softer, creamier texture to the filling.
Mayonnaise sauce or salad dressing
Adds fat and richness, helping the filling stay smooth and moist.
Aspic jelly
Helps the filling set so it holds its shape between slices of bread.

The step that matters

Adding the aspic jelly. Aspic must be liquid but not warm when added, because hot jelly can thin the mixture and stop it setting properly. Once the mixture begins to set, the cream can be folded in without deflating it.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (asparagus, cream, sauce, egg):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, cream, 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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