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Asparagus, Pompadour

A dish of boiled asparagus topped with a butter, egg yolk, lemon, and spice sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Asparagus, Pompadour

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Prepare the asparagus by tying it in bundles and cutting off the hard parts, leaving only the tender parts.

  2. Cook the asparagus in boiling water seasoned with salt until tender, then drain and keep warm.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and add salt, mace, red pepper, egg yolks, lemon juice, and cold water.

  2. Place the saucepan in boiling water, stirring continuously with a whisk until the sauce thickens.

Serve

  1. Remove from heat and layer the asparagus on a dish, then pour the sauce over it twice.

  2. Serve hot with a spoon; eat with a fork.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Asparagus + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together704 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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
Main vegetable; cooking softens its fibres into a tender texture.
Butter
Fat that enriches the sauce and gives it a smooth, rich body.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they heat and help bind the butter and liquid together.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce over boiling water. Egg yolks set when heated, so if the sauce gets too hot or is not stirred constantly it can curdle or scramble. Gentle, steady heat and constant whisking keep it smooth and thick.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (asparagus, butter, pepper, egg, lemon):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, butter, pepper, egg, lemon. 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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