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Asparagus

Boiled asparagus served with toasted bread and melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and clean the asparagus, cutting away the tough ends.

Cook the asparagus

  1. Tie the asparagus into bundles and place them in boiling water with a little salt.

  2. Boil briskly until tender.

Assemble and serve

  1. Dip a round of toasted bread in the cooking liquid and place it in a dish.

  2. Pour melted butter over the toast and arrange the asparagus around it.

  3. Serve with additional melted butter in a sauce tureen.

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. Bread + buttertop 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
Forms the main vegetable and cooks to a tender texture in boiling salted water.
Toasted bread
Acts as the base that soaks up the cooking liquid and melted butter.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and moisture into the toast and asparagus.

The step that matters

Boil briskly until tender. Asparagus cooks quickly in vigorously boiling water. Overcooking softens the stalks until they turn dull and mushy, so check tenderness early and drain promptly.

Swap the asparagus

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

  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 bread, 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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