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A creamy asparagus custard made with broth, butter, flour, eggs, cream, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 34,118 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a pot, combine broth, pepper, salt, small onions, and mace.

  2. Stir in butter and flour, and simmer for 30 minutes.

Finish with cream

  1. In a bowl, beat eggs with cream, parsley, and nutmeg.

  2. Add boiled asparagus tops to the pot.

  3. Do not let the mixture boil after adding the cream; heat gently while stirring continuously to prevent curdling.

  4. Optionally, add boiled young French beans or peas for color.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

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

  3. Mace + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Pepper + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together25,834 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the cream mixture as they set gently with heat, giving the sauce body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and smooths the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a body that clings to the asparagus.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Boiled asparagus tops
Provide the main vegetable flavor and tender texture in the dish.

The step that matters

Heat the cream gently without boiling. Eggs in the sauce can curdle and turn grainy if the mixture boils or is heated too fast. Stirring constantly and keeping the heat gentle keeps the custard-like texture smooth.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

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

  1. Nutmegbetter flavor fit
  2. Celerybetter flavor fit
  3. Thymebetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, onion, butter, flour, egg, cream, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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