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Asparagus Peas

A dish of asparagus cut into pea-sized pieces, simmered in a buttery cream sauce, served over toasted French roll.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Asparagus Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Cut asparagus into pieces the size of peas, wash, and place in a stew pan.

  2. Add hot water and salt, then boil until three-quarters cooked.

  3. Strain and reserve the cooking liquid.

Make the sauce

  1. Reduce the liquid until nearly gone, then add butter, cream, sugar, and enough water to achieve a proper thickness.

  2. Stir in the peas and serve over the toasted and buttered French roll.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Asparagus + creamtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together838 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Provides the main vegetable body and flavour of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel to the sauce.
Cream
Adds body and creaminess, thickening the reduced cooking liquid.
Sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the vegetable flavour.
French roll
Serves as the toasted base that holds the sauce.

The step that matters

Reducing the cooking liquid. Reducing concentrates the flavour and thickens the liquid before cream and butter go in. If it is reduced too far it becomes pasty and salty, and if not reduced enough the sauce stays thin and watery.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, sugar. 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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