Why it works: Asparagus and sauce work together. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 573 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Stewed Asparagus for Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Scale the asparagus and cut off the heads, keeping only the eatable parts.
Boil the asparagus heads until nearly done, then strain them.
Pour cold water over the heads to preserve their green color.
Prepare a strong cullis and bring it to a boil.
Add the asparagus heads to the cullis and cook for five minutes.
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.
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Asparagus + saucetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together573 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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