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Soup

Potage Aux Asperges, or Asparagus Soup

A soup made from asparagus, cabbage lettuce, green onions, carrot, parsley, peas, butter, consommé, beef stock, and a small lump of sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Potage Aux Asperges, or Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the asparagus into pieces and place them in a basin of clear water.

  2. Add the lettuces, green onions, carrot, parsley, and peas with salt to boiling water. Boil briefly and skim.

  3. Transfer the vegetables to a sieve to drain.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a large clean pot.

  2. Add the drained vegetables and stir until mashed.

  3. Gradually add the consommé while stirring gently. Add the sugar. Add a little more salt.

  4. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

  5. Add the quart of mixed consommé and beef stock.

  6. Let it boil for 1.5 hours before serving.

Finish

  1. Blanch the remaining asparagus cut into small pieces for 30 minutes before serving.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Asparagus + lettucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together313 recipes

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

  3. Asparagus + peastop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together808 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together622 recipes

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

  5. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the soup with fat, giving it a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.
Consommé
Provides the main savoury liquid base and flavour of the soup.
Beef stock
Adds meaty depth to the mixed liquid base.
Peas
Add natural sweetness and body when mashed into the soup.
Asparagus
Gives the soup its main vegetable flavour and pieces of texture.

The step that matters

Rubbing the mixture through a fine sieve. Mashed vegetables contain fibrous pieces that stay gritty unless pressed through a fine sieve, which gives the soup its smooth texture.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (asparagus, cabbage, lettuce, onion, carrot, parsley, butter):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, cabbage, lettuce, onion, carrot, parsley, butter. 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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