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Asparagus

A dish of boiled asparagus served on thick toast with melted butter and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and lemon work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 704 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Asparagus

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove loose leaves from the asparagus and scrape the stalks.

  2. Wash the asparagus in cold water and cut the stalks to the same length.

  3. Tie the asparagus into small bundles with the heads aligned.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the asparagus in hot water with a little coarse sea salt for about 20 minutes until tender, being careful not to break the heads.

  2. Serve the asparagus on a slice of thick toast dipped in the cooking water.

  3. Serve with melted butter mixed with a few drops of lemon juice.

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 + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together704 recipes

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

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  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
Is the main vegetable, cooked until tender and served as the centrepiece.
Thick toast
Soaks up the cooking water, giving a moist base that supports the asparagus.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth fat coating that carries the flavour of the dish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the buttery sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Boiling the asparagus until tender without breaking the heads. Asparagus stalks need enough heat time to soften, but the tender tips cook faster and can fall apart. Tying the bundles with heads aligned and keeping the heads out of harsh bubbling helps them stay intact while the stalks finish cooking.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Asparagusthe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Arrowrootfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lemon. 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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