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Asparagus Soup.— Puree D’asperges

A creamy asparagus soup made with leeks, onions, herbs, stock, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and leek share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 73 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup.— Puree D’asperges

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the green tops from the asparagus and set aside.

  2. Finely chop the white parts of the leeks, onions, and herbs.

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan, combine the asparagus stalks, leeks, onions, and herbs with the butter and fry for 20 minutes.

  2. Add the flour and mix well, then pour in the stock.

  3. Simmer gently for about an hour until the vegetables are tender, skimming off any scum that rises.

  4. Strain the liquid from the vegetables, pound the vegetables, and mix the stock back into the pulp.

  5. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve, warm the puree, and stir in the hot cream.

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. Asparagus + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together73 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Leek + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

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

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

  4. Leek + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together162 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

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 and flavour of the soup as it cooks down into a puree.
Flour
Thickens the stock so the soup has body rather than running thin.
Butter
Fat that softens the vegetables gently and carries flavour during frying.
Leeks
Add a mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the base.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished puree.
White stock
Provides the liquid that simmers the vegetables and becomes the soup's base.

The step that matters

Skimming while simmering. Scum rising during the hour-long simmer can cloud the soup and taste bitter, so it should be skimmed off as it forms.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, leek, butter, flour, cream, egg, 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.

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