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Asparagus, Boiled, American

Boiled asparagus served on toast with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,026 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Asparagus, Boiled, American

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cover the tips of the asparagus with coarse muslin.

  2. Bind the bundles in a couple of places with wide tape.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook in plenty of boiling water with salt and a bit of butter until tender.

  2. Drain and pile the asparagus on the toast.

  3. Add small pieces of cold butter between the stalks before serving.

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. 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
Is the main vegetable, cooked until tender and served as the centrepiece.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel as it melts over the hot stalks.
Toast
Provides a crisp base that soaks up melted butter and asparagus juices.

The step that matters

Cook in plenty of boiling water. Using a large volume of rapidly boiling water keeps the temperature high when the asparagus goes in, so it cooks evenly and stays bright green rather than turning dull and mushy.

“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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