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Asparagus Salad

A salad of boiled eggs, asparagus, and a mustard vinaigrette, served on fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Asparagus Salad

Why it works: Asparagus and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 213 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Asparagus Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the eggs until hard, then cool them.

  2. Fry the slice of bread until golden, then let it cool and trim the edges.

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, mash the egg yolks and mix in salt, mustard, salad oil, and vinegar slowly.

Assemble and serve

  1. Dip each asparagus tip in the sauce, then arrange them on the toast.

  2. Garnish with chilis and chopped egg whites.

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 + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together213 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Asparagus + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together363 recipes

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

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Mustard + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks form the creamy base of the sauce, while the whites add texture as garnish.
Salad oil
Adds fat and smoothness, giving the emulsified sauce its body.
Mustard
Adds sharpness and helps hold the oil and vinegar together in the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the yolks and oil.
Fried bread
Gives a crisp, golden base that holds the asparagus and sauce.

The step that matters

Mixing the sauce slowly. Adding the oil and vinegar gradually to the mashed yolks lets the mixture emulsify. Adding them all at once can cause the sauce to separate and turn thin and greasy.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, mustard, bread. 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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