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Asparagus to Pickle

A preserved asparagus dish pickled in vinegar, salt, nutmeg, mace, and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Asparagus to Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Cut off the white ends of the asparagus and wash the green ends in spring water.

  2. Soak the asparagus in fresh water for 2–3 hours.

  3. In a broad stew pan, bring spring water and salt to a boil.

  4. Add the asparagus in batches and scald them.

  5. Remove the asparagus with a skimmer and lay them on a cloth to cool.

Make and add the pickle

  1. Boil the white wine vinegar with bay salt.

  2. Place the asparagus in a jar and pour the hot pickle over them.

  3. Add nutmegs, mace, and whole white pepper to the pickle.

Steep and seal

  1. Cover the jar with a linen cloth and let it stand for a week.

  2. Boil the pickle again and let it stand for another week.

  3. Repeat boiling the pickle and pour it over the asparagus hot.

  4. Once cooled, cover the jar tightly.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Asparagus + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Nutmeg + white peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Forms the pickled vegetable itself, keeping its crisp, tender texture after brining and scalding.
White wine vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the asparagus and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the scalding water and pickle and helps draw out moisture and firm the asparagus.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickle.
Mace
Adds a delicate, aromatic spice flavour to the pickle.

The step that matters

Scalding the asparagus. Brief scalding softens the stems just enough for pickling while keeping them crisp. Overcooking turns them limp, and the pickle then cannot restore firmness.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, vinegar, nutmeg, mace, white pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, vinegar, nutmeg, mace, white pepper. 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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