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Creamed Asparagus

A baked dish of tender asparagus in a creamy sauce with eggs and heavy cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Creamed Asparagus

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Reject the lower halves of the asparagus stalks and boil the upper halves until very tender.

  2. Drain and chop the asparagus.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, cook the butter and flour together until bubbling.

  2. Pour in the milk with the baking soda dissolved in it, stirring until smooth and creamy.

  3. Add the chopped asparagus, salt, and pepper, then set aside to cool.

  4. Once cool, beat in the eggs and heavy cream.

Bake and brown

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding dish and bake covered at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes.

  2. Uncover and brown the top.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Asparagus + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,968 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Asparagus + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 flavor and body of the dish.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth, creamy sauce.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the creamed mixture a firm, custard-like structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and adds moisture and richness.
Heavy cream
Adds fat for a richer, silkier texture.
Baking soda
Raises the pH of the milk mixture, which can help the top brown more readily.

The step that matters

Let the sauce cool before adding the eggs. Beaten eggs added to a very hot sauce can scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy texture instead of a smooth, set custard.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, pepper, egg, cream):

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Asparagusthe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, pepper, egg, cream. 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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