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Asparagus Soup

A creamy soup made from asparagus, stock, butter, flour, and cream, seasoned with peppercorns and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup base

  1. Cut the green tops from the asparagus and set aside.

  2. Heat the butter in a pot and mix in the flour.

  3. Add 1 quart of the stock and the white parts of the asparagus.

  4. Boil for 30 minutes or until tender.

Strain and combine

  1. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve and rub through the pulp.

  2. In another pot, boil the green tops in the remaining stock for 15 to 20 minutes.

  3. Combine this with the soup and reheat.

Serve

  1. Pour over the cream in a serving tureen.

  2. Add salt to taste.

  3. Add a little more Liebig Company's Extract of Meat for extra flavor.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Asparagus + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Asparagus + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,026 recipes

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

  5. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Provides the main flavor and, once puréed, the body of the soup.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and carries the flavor of the vegetables.
Flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that carries and dissolves the flavors.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour into the butter. Cooking flour in melted butter coats the starch granules with fat, so they disperse evenly when liquid is added. Adding the flour without this step tends to produce lumps and an uneven, floury thickness.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, 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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