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Asparagus Soup

A soup made from beef or veal broth, onions, turnips, sweet herbs, asparagus parts, boiled asparagus heads, poached eggs, and roasted fowl.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Asparagus and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 138 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a pot, combine the broth, onions, turnips, sweet herbs, and asparagus parts.

  2. Simmer until tender enough to strain through a fine sieve.

  3. Strain the soup and season it to taste.

Prepare the garnish

  1. Boil the asparagus heads until tender and set aside.

  2. Poach the eggs until hard.

Finish and serve

  1. In another pot, boil the clear gravy soup and add the roasted fowl for 1-2 minutes.

  2. Add tarragon leaves and season with salt.

  3. Place the poached eggs and boiled asparagus heads in a tureen and pour the hot soup over them.

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. Asparagus + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together138 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + asparagustop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + tarragontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Gives the soup its characteristic flavor and green vegetal aroma.
Eggs
Poached until hard, they add body and protein to the garnish in the tureen.
Onions
Build a savory aromatic base as they simmer with the broth.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and body to the simmered broth.
Beef or veal broth
Forms the liquid base that carries and blends the other flavors.

The step that matters

Simmering until tender enough to strain. The vegetables must be fully softened so they break down and pass through a fine sieve cleanly. Under-cooked vegetables stay fibrous and leave a grainy, uneven texture in the strained soup.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, turnip, asparagus, egg, tarragon):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turnip, asparagus, egg, tarragon. 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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