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Cream of Asparagus

A creamy soup made with fresh asparagus, onion, butter, flour, stock, milk, and cream.

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

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 ↓

Cream of Asparagus

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Cut the tops from one bunch of asparagus and cook them in salted water for 20 minutes.

  2. Cook the remaining asparagus in a quart of stock or water for 20 minutes.

Make the soup

  1. Fry the sliced onion in butter for 10 minutes without scorching.

  2. Add the boiled asparagus to the pan and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Stir in the dissolved flour and cook for 5 minutes.

  4. Transfer the mixture to the boiling stock and boil for 20 minutes.

  5. Pass the soup through a sieve, then add milk, cream, and the asparagus tops.

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 + 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 + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,212 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 flavour and body of the soup once cooked and sieved.
Butter
Carries the onion's flavour and adds richness during the initial frying.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Frying the onion without scorching. Onion fried in butter for 10 minutes should turn soft and golden, not browned. Scorched onion gives bitter, burnt flavours that carry through the whole soup, so keep the heat moderate and stir often.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, butter, flour, milk, 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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