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Asparagus Soup

A soup made with boiled asparagus stems, flour, butter, salt, cayenne pepper, milk or cream, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Boil the asparagus stems in water until very tender.

  2. Press the cooked stems through a sieve into the soup.

Thicken and season

  1. In a bowl, rub the flour with the butter until smooth.

  2. Stir the flour mixture into the soup.

  3. Season the soup with salt, cayenne pepper, milk or cream, and sugar.

  4. Add the tender asparagus heads to the soup and serve.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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 flavor and body of the soup once the stems are pressed through a sieve.
Flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells when heated in the liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the flour blend smoothly into the soup.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and creaminess, softening the soup's flavor and texture.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour mixture into the soup. Flour clumps if added without being smoothed first with butter. Rubbing them together into a smooth paste lets the starch disperse evenly, so the soup thickens without lumps.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Sweet potatofits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, butter, pepper, milk, sugar. 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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