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Asparagus Soup

A creamy soup made with asparagus, chicken stock, cream, butter, flour, salt, and pepper.

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

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Remove the heads from the asparagus after cooking them in boiling water until tender.

  2. Rub the stalks through a sieve and add the pulp to the chicken stock, well seasoned.

Make the soup

  1. Heat the cream in a double boiler.

  2. In a separate pan, cook the butter and flour together.

  3. Gradually add the chicken stock and asparagus pulp to the butter and flour mixture.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. When ready to serve, add the asparagus heads and the hot cream.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Asparagus + chickentop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  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, once puréed, the body of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour as the base for the flour roux.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter and then combined with the stock.
Cream
Adds richness, smooth texture and a mellow body to the finished soup.
Chicken stock
Supplies the liquid base and savoury depth for the soup.

The step that matters

Gradually add the stock and asparagus pulp to the butter and flour mixture. Adding liquid slowly while stirring lets the starch in the flour disperse evenly, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth, properly thickened soup.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

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