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Asparagus Soup

A soup made from asparagus tips and pieces, simmered with water and butter, optionally flavored with onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Asparagus and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,212 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Boil the water in a pot.

  2. Rub half the asparagus tips through a sieve to thicken the soup.

  3. If using onion, fry it in butter until soft.

  4. Sieve the fried onion and add to the soup.

Cook and finish

  1. Add the remaining asparagus pieces to the boiling water and cook until tender.

  2. Stir in the sieved asparagus and cook for a few more minutes.

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 + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,212 recipes

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

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Provides the main flavour and, when sieved, thickens the soup body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and gently softens the onion without browning it.
Onion
Adds a savoury aroma and background flavour when fried and sieved into the soup.

The step that matters

Rubbing the asparagus tips through a sieve. Pressing the cooked tips through a sieve breaks down their fibres and releases starch and pulp, which is what thickens the soup. Skipping the sieve leaves the soup thin and stringy.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (asparagus, butter):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, butter. 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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