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Asparagus Points

Asparagus points served with a veal gravy sauce enriched with egg yolks, butter, lemon, salt, and white pepper.

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 Points

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Boil the asparagus points in water for 10 to 15 minutes until tender.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the thickened veal gravy with the egg yolks.

  2. Combine the melted butter, lemon juice, salt, and white pepper in a saucepan.

  3. Add the gravy and egg mixture to the butter mixture and stir well.

Serve

  1. Serve the asparagus points topped with the sauce.

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. Lemon + white peppertop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add richness as they set gently with heat.
Melted butter
Adds fat and smooth, rich texture to the sauce.
Thickened veal gravy
Provides savory meaty flavor and body to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and yolk sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the gravy and egg mixture to the butter. Egg yolks can scramble if they get too hot or are added to very hot liquid too quickly. Stirring steadily and keeping the heat gentle lets the yolks thicken the sauce smoothly.

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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