Skip to main content
Main

Asparagus

A dish of boiled asparagus served on toasted bread with a butter and flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Asparagus

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Trim the green ends off the asparagus and chop the remaining stalks.

  2. Boil the chopped asparagus until tender, then season with salt and pepper.

Make the sauce

  1. Toast the bread and place it in a deep dish.

  2. In a bowl, mix equal parts flour and butter to a cream.

  3. Slowly add enough asparagus water or hot water to make a sauce. Boil the sauce briefly.

Assemble

  1. Place the asparagus on the toast and pour the sauce over it.

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Asparagus + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,968 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and butter 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 vegetable flavour and tender texture of the dish.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce when cooked with butter and water.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping to form a smooth base for the sauce.
Bread
Gives a crisp, absorbent base that holds the asparagus and sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce briefly. Flour needs to be heated in the liquid for long enough to cook out its raw taste and to thicken fully. Adding the liquid slowly while stirring helps prevent lumps from forming in the sauce.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, bread, flour, 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.

More asparagus on toast recipes

Boiled 6 See all 56 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesAsparagus SoupAsparagus Soup179 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesAsparagus SaladAsparagus Salad77 recipes