Name: Asparagus with Sauce
Ingredients: ½ pint asparagus points; ½ pint thickened veal gravy; 2 egg yolks; ½ pint good melted butter; 2 teaspoons lemon juice; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon white pepper

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 with Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

Make the sauce

In a separate bowl, mix the thickened veal gravy with the egg yolks.
Add the melted butter, lemon juice, salt, and white pepper to the mixture.

Serve

Serve the asparagus 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.

Asparagus + lemontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together704 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lemon + white peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,658 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,580 recipes

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

Asparagus points: Forms the main vegetable base that the sauce is spooned over.
Veal gravy: Supplies savoury meaty flavour and body to the sauce.
Egg yolks: Emulsify the butter and gravy and thicken the sauce as they set with gentle heat.
Melted butter: Adds richness and a smooth, glossy texture to the sauce.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and gravy.

The step that matters

Adding the melted butter to the yolk mixture. Butter must be added slowly and the mixture kept from overheating, otherwise the egg yolks can scramble or the sauce can split instead of forming a smooth, emulsified sauce.

Swap the white pepper

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

Tarragonfits better
Parsleyfits better
Capersfits better
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.

Lemon Sauce236 recipes

Asparagus Soup179 recipes

Asparagus Salad77 recipes

Veal Patties50 recipes

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Asparagus with Sauce