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Puree d’Asperges.

A smooth puree of boiled asparagus and spinach, finished with white sauce and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 274 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Puree d’Asperges.

Ingredients

Directions

Cook and strain

  1. Boil the asparagus in stock or water with the spinach until tender.

  2. Make the liquid up to 1 quart again.

  3. Pass the asparagus through a fine sieve.

  4. Return to the saucepan and reheat.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the white sauce and cream, then serve.

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 + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together274 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  2. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Spinach + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Asparagus + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together573 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Spinach + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together756 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Provides the main body and flavour, and its fibres break down into a smooth purée when sieved.
Spinach
Adds colour and a deeper, earthy green flavour to the purée.
White sauce
Its starch thickens the purée and gives it a fuller, softer body.
Cream
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Reheat gently after adding the white sauce and cream. Cream and white sauce can separate or curdle if boiled hard, which would leave the purée grainy and split. Keep it hot but not boiling.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spinach, sauce, cream):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Lettucefits about as well
  3. Beetrootfits about as well
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, sauce, cream. 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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