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Asparagus Soup

A soup made from boiled meat broth, asparagus, celery, pepper, and sea salt.

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

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Strain the liquor from the boiled meat.

  2. Add the asparagus and chopped celery to the liquor.

Season and simmer

  1. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Boil for 20 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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Asparagus + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together378 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Meat + asparagustop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together142 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Meat + celerytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,880 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Main vegetable that gives the soup its green flavour and tender body after simmering.
Meat
Its boiled liquor forms the savoury base of the soup.
Celery
Adds a mild aromatic note that rounds out the flavour.

The step that matters

Boiling for 20 minutes. Prolonged heat breaks down the green chlorophyll in asparagus, dulling its colour and flattening its fresh flavour, so the soup should be watched rather than left to boil unchecked.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, celery, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, celery, pepper. 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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