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Boiled Asparagus

A simple boiled asparagus dish served with rich melted butter and optional vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Boiled Asparagus

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 ↓

Boiled Asparagus

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the asparagus stalks and place them in boiling water.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook for 20 to 25 minutes until tender.

  2. Serve hot with rich melted butter.

  3. Optionally, stir a small quantity of vinegar into the butter 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.

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 + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,026 recipes

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

  2. Asparagus + vinegartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together439 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  3. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking until tender in boiling water.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, coating the hot asparagus with fat and flavour.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that cuts through the richness of the melted butter.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, vinegar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, vinegar. 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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