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Asparagus with Cream

A dish of blanched asparagus cooked with butter, sugar, and onion in a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,212 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Asparagus with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Cut the asparagus into small pieces.

  2. Bring a saucepan of water to a boil and blanch the asparagus for 3 minutes.

  3. Drain the asparagus and transfer it to another saucepan.

Cook the creamed asparagus

  1. Add a little water, butter, sugar, and the onion to the saucepan.

  2. Cook on low heat until the onion is soft.

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 + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,212 recipes

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

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Asparagus + sugartop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together488 recipes

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

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 dish and gives it its vegetable flavor and texture.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel and carries flavor.
Onion
Softens during cooking to add a savory aromatic base.
Sugar
Adds mild sweetness that balances the grassy bitterness of asparagus.

The step that matters

Cook on low heat until the onion is soft. Low heat softens the onion gently without browning it, so the dish keeps a mild, sweet flavor instead of a sharp or toasted one.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, butter, sugar. 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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