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Asparagus Soup

A soup made with beef broth, asparagus, herbs, and spinach, finished with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

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 ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a large pot, combine the beef, water, sweet herbs, onion, pepper, and salt.

  2. Simmer until the meat's strength is extracted, then strain the soup.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the asparagus, parsley, and mint to the strained soup.

  2. Bring the soup to a boil to eliminate any raw taste.

  3. Before serving, add the fried bread and stir in the spinach pulp.

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

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Parsley + spinachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,025 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Pepper + spinachtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Parsley + minttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,198 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Gravy beef
Releases meat flavour and body into the broth during long simmering.
Asparagus
Provides the main vegetable flavour and texture of the soup.
Spinach
Adds colour and a soft, green body when pounded to a pulp.
Fried bread
Adds crisp texture that softens slowly when served in the hot soup.

The step that matters

Bring the soup to a boil after adding the asparagus. Asparagus and spinach can taste raw or grassy if not heated through. Boiling the soup cooks the vegetables fully and mellows their flavour before serving.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, pepper, asparagus, parsley, bread, spinach):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, pepper, asparagus, parsley, bread, spinach. 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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