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Puree Oe Asparagus a LA Conde

A green vegetable puree made from asparagus, spinach, parsley, green onions, and velouté sauce, served chilled or warm with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 274 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Puree Oe Asparagus a LA Conde

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Break off the heads of the asparagus so they snap off easily.

  2. Soak the asparagus, spinach, parsley, and green onions in cold water.

  3. In a large pot, bring water with a handful of salt to a boil.

  4. Drain the vegetables.

  5. Add the vegetables to the boiling water and cook until tender.

  6. Drain the vegetables again.

  7. Rinse the vegetables with cold water to retain color.

Make the puree

  1. In a medium pot, combine the drained vegetables with velouté sauce, sugar, nutmeg, and salt.

  2. Stir over medium heat for about 3 minutes until it boils.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve into a large dish.

  4. Cool the puree in the refrigerator to maintain its color and flavor.

  5. Heat the puree until nearly boiling.

  6. Mix in a pat of butter and a small piece of light-colored glaze.

  7. Serve with a plate of croutons.

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 + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together274 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Spinach + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Spinach + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,025 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

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 puree and gives its green flavor.
Velouté sauce
Adds body and creaminess, making the puree smooth and rich.
Spinach
Adds extra green color and leafy flavor to the puree.
Sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the vegetables.

The step that matters

Rinse the vegetables with cold water. Cooling the vegetables quickly after boiling stops the cooking and helps keep their bright green color. Without it, residual heat turns the greens dull and olive-colored.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (asparagus, spinach, parsley, sauce, sugar, nutmeg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, spinach, parsley, sauce, sugar, nutmeg. 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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