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Asparagus Sauce, for Lamb Chops

A sauce made from boiled asparagus, veal gravy, egg yolks, and seasonings, served with lamb chops.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and lemon work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 704 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Asparagus Sauce, for Lamb Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Wash the asparagus well and drain.

  2. Boil plenty of salted water and add the asparagus.

  3. Cook until tender, about 10 to 15 minutes.

  4. Drain the asparagus in a hot strainer.

Finish the sauce

  1. Mix the asparagus with thickened veal gravy and egg yolks, seasoning with salt and cayenne or white pepper.

  2. Alternatively, mix with melted butter and add a squeeze of lemon juice 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 + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together704 recipes

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

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

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

  3. White pepper + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,658 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

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

  5. Asparagus + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Young asparagus
Forms the main body and flavour of the sauce once cooked and mixed.
Thickened veal gravy
Adds savoury body and moisture to the asparagus purée.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and help thicken it as they are gently heated.
Good melted butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture as an alternative to the gravy.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the asparagus and butter.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks to the warm asparagus. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat and can scramble if they meet very hot liquid or are overheated. Mixing them in gently while the mixture is warm, not boiling, keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, veal, egg, butter, 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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