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Asparagus, to Boil

A boiled asparagus dish served with buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Asparagus, to Boil

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Scrape asparagus stalks until they look white.

  2. Cut the asparagus evenly.

  3. Soak the asparagus in clean water.

  4. Tie the asparagus in small bunches.

Boil

  1. Boil water in a stewpan.

  2. Add salt to the boiling water.

  3. Place the bunches in the boiling water.

  4. Remove the asparagus when tender.

Make the toast and serve

  1. Toast a slice of bread.

  2. Dip the toast in the asparagus cooking water.

  3. Place the toast in a dish.

  4. Pour melted butter over the toast.

  5. Arrange the asparagus around the dish with tops inward.

  6. Serve additional melted butter in a separate dish.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Asparagus + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together363 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Is the main vegetable, cooked until tender in salted boiling water.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat, moistening the toast and coating the dish.
Bread
Forms the base that soaks up the cooking water and butter.

The step that matters

Remove the asparagus when tender. Asparagus cooks quickly, and overcooking softens its structure and turns it dull and mushy, so it should be checked and removed as soon as it is tender.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread. 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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