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Asparagus Soup

A simple soup made with broth and asparagus tops, seasoned with salt, sugar, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Asparagus and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 566 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Thicken the broth

  1. In a pot, bring 2 quarts of broth to a boil.

  2. Add 1 pint of asparagus tops and cook until they are soft and can be pulped.

  3. Return the thickened liquid to the pot and bring to a boil again.

Finish the soup

  1. Add another pint of asparagus tops, a little salt, sugar, and young parsley.

  2. Cook for 20 to 25 minutes until the soup is ready.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + parsleytop 39% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,535 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Broth
Forms the liquid base and carries the savory flavor of the soup.
Asparagus tops
Cooked until soft and pulped, they give the soup its body and green asparagus flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking the first asparagus tops until fully soft. Asparagus must be cooked until tender enough to pulp. If it is undercooked, the fibers stay firm and the soup turns out grainy and thin rather than smooth and thickened.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, 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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