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Salad of Asparagus

A chilled asparagus salad dressed with lemon, mustard, oil, vinegar, cayenne pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Salad of Asparagus

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Scale and cut off the heads of the asparagus.

  2. Boil the asparagus until nearly done.

  3. Strain and place them in cold water for 5 minutes.

  4. Drain the asparagus well.

Assemble and serve

  1. Arrange the asparagus in rows on a dish.

  2. Place slices of lemon around the rim.

  3. Mix mustard, oil, vinegar, cayenne pepper, and salt in a bowl.

  4. Pour the dressing over the asparagus just 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Asparagus + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together213 recipes

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

  3. Asparagus + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together704 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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
Forms the main body of the salad and is cooked until nearly tender.
Mustard
Emulsifies the oil and vinegar so the dressing stays combined and clings to the asparagus.
Oil
Carries the flavors and gives the dressing a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil.
Lemon
Adds fresh acidity and aroma as a garnish around the dish.

The step that matters

Drain the asparagus well. Water left on the spears dilutes the dressing and stops it clinging, so the salad turns watery and bland.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, mustard, vinegar, pepper. 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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