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Asparagus a Lttalienne

Boiled asparagus served on croutons or toast with white Italian sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Asparagus a Lttalienne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick and wash the asparagus carefully.

  2. Tie the asparagus in bundles of about fifteen heads.

  3. Cut the stalks evenly to about 7 inches long.

Cook

  1. Boil water in a pan, adding 1 teaspoon of salt for every quart and a pinch of baking soda.

  2. Add the asparagus and boil for 15 to 20 minutes.

  3. Lift out the asparagus and drain on a towel.

Serve

  1. Serve on fried croutons or buttered toast.

  2. Pour a little white Italian sauce over the stalk ends and serve the remainder in a tureen.

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 + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together573 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
The main vegetable, cooked whole in bundles so the stalks stay intact.
Baking soda
Raises the pot water's pH, which helps the asparagus keep a bright green colour.

The step that matters

Boil the asparagus for 15 to 20 minutes. Asparagus turns from bright green to olive and soft if overcooked. Timing the boil by the stalk's tenderness, rather than the clock alone, keeps the texture firm and the colour fresh.

“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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