Name: Asparagus Soup
Ingredients: 2 quarts broth; 1 pint asparagus tops; 1 pint asparagus tops (additional); ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon sugar; 2 tablespoons young parsley (chopped)

Why it works: Asparagus and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 566 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Bring 2 quarts of broth to a boil in a pot.
Add 1 pint of asparagus tops and cook until soft enough to pulp.
Return the thickened liquid to the pot and bring to a boil again.
Add nearly 1 pint more asparagus tops, salt, sugar, and parsley.
Cook for 20 to 25 minutes until ready.

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.

Asparagus + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together566 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Asparagus + sugartop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together488 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + parsleytop 39% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,535 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus tops: Softened and pulped to give the soup its body and vegetable flavor.
Broth: Forms the liquid base that the asparagus cooks into and carries the flavor.