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Asparagus Soup

A soup made from asparagus points and pieces, onion, butter, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Asparagus and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,212 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the asparagus

  1. Boil 2 quarts of water in a pot.

  2. Add the asparagus points and cook until tender.

  3. Remove half of the asparagus.

  4. Rub the asparagus through a sieve to thicken the soup.

Finish the soup

  1. Cut the remaining asparagus into 1-inch pieces.

  2. Add the cut asparagus to the pot.

  3. Fry the onion in butter until soft.

  4. Sieve the onion into the soup.

  5. Season the soup with coarse sea salt to taste.

  6. 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 + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,212 recipes

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

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Asparagus + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Forms the body of the soup; pressed through a sieve, it thickens the liquid and adds flavor.
Butter
Fat that softens the onion and carries flavor, adding richness to the finished soup.
Onion
Softened in butter, it adds a mellow aroma and savory sweetness to the soup.

The step that matters

Rub the asparagus through a sieve. Pressing cooked asparagus through a sieve breaks down its cell walls and releases pulp and starch, which thickens the soup. Leaving lumps or skipping the pressing leaves the soup thin and fibrous.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter. 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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