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Asparagus Soup

A soup made from boiled asparagus, milk, butter, flour, and toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the asparagus

  1. Boil the asparagus in water until tender.

  2. Strain the asparagus through a colander and return it to the cooking water.

Make the thickened milk

  1. Heat the milk in a separate pot.

  2. Rub the butter with the flour.

  3. Stir the butter‑flour mixture into the heated milk.

  4. Cook the mixture for a few minutes.

Combine and serve

  1. Season the mixture and pour it into the asparagus.

  2. Bring the soup to a boil and serve topped with toasted bread pieces.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  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
Forms the main body and flavour of the soup as it cooks into the liquid.
Milk
Provides creamy moisture and body once combined with the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour in the soup.
Flour
Thickens the milk when cooked with butter, giving the soup body.

The step that matters

Cooking the butter‑flour mixture in the milk. Flour must be cooked for a few minutes after being stirred into the hot milk so it thickens smoothly and loses its raw starchy taste. Stirring well while adding prevents lumps.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, bread. 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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