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Asparagus Soup

A soup made from asparagus heads, stems, stock, and water, seasoned with salt and optionally sherry.

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 sherry work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Scrape the asparagus without cutting off the stems.

  2. Boil the asparagus in salted water until the heads are nearly done, about 12 minutes.

  3. Drain the asparagus.

  4. Set the green heads aside.

  5. If stock is not made, add the asparagus stems to the vegetables.

  6. If stock is ready, boil the stems a little longer in the same water.

  7. Strain the stems.

  8. Add the asparagus water to the stock.

Make and serve the soup

  1. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  2. Drop in the green heads.

  3. Simmer for 2-3 minutes.

  4. Serve with a small quantity of sherry added to the tureen, if desired.

  5. Optionally, cut up a French roll.

  6. Optionally, serve the cut roll in the soup.

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 + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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 flavour and the green tender heads that give the soup its body.
Medium stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the asparagus flavour.
French roll
Optional bread that soaks up broth and adds a soft, starchy texture.

The step that matters

Simmer the green heads briefly. Asparagus tips cook quickly; boiling them too long turns them dull and mushy. A short simmer of 2-3 minutes keeps them bright green and tender-crisp.

“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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