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Asparagus Soup

A soup made with asparagus tips, cut asparagus, water, onion, butter, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Asparagus and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,212 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil 2 quarts of water in a pot.

  2. Add the asparagus tips and cook until tender.

  3. Remove half of the asparagus and puree it through a sieve.

  4. Add the cut asparagus pieces to the pot and cook until done.

  5. In a separate pan, fry the onion in butter until soft, then puree it through a sieve.

  6. Combine the pureed asparagus and onion with the soup, and season with salt.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,212 recipes

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

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus tips
Provide the main flavor and become tender in the broth, then thicken it when pureed.
Butter
Softens the onion and carries its flavor into the soup.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and body once softened and pureed into the soup.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter. 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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