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Cream of Asparagus Soup

A creamy soup made from asparagus, stock, flour, and sweet cream.

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

Why it works: Asparagus and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,968 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cream of Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Cut off the tips of the asparagus, about an inch long.

  2. Simmer the tips in water with salt until tender.

Make the soup

  1. Boil the stalks in white stock or water for 20 minutes.

  2. Strain the liquid and thicken it with flour, boiling for 2 minutes.

  3. Add sweet cream and the cooked asparagus tips to the thickened liquid.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, and serve hot.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Asparagus + creamtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together838 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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, through the stalks, the body of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the strained liquid by swelling with heat, giving the soup a smooth, body-rich texture.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the soup a softer, silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Thickening the strained liquid with flour. Flour must be boiled for the full two minutes so its starch swells and cooks out. Otherwise the soup can taste raw and floury and stay thin.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cream, 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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