Skip to main content
Main

Asparagus Soup

A creamy soup made from boiled asparagus, milk, water, flour, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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 ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Cut the asparagus tips.

  2. Cook the asparagus tips separately.

  3. Chop the asparagus stalks.

  4. Boil the chopped stalks until tender.

  5. Sieve the boiled stalks.

Make the soup

  1. Blend butter and flour with salt and pepper in a pan.

  2. Add the reserved water and milk to the pan.

  3. Let the mixture boil for 3 minutes.

  4. Pour the soup over the asparagus tips in a tureen.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Asparagus + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together650 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 the sieved stalks give the soup its body.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, making the soup smooth and creamy.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells and sets when heated.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for 3 minutes after adding the milk. Flour starch only thickens fully when it is heated enough to swell. Boiling for the full time cooks out the raw flour taste and gives the soup its body. Keep stirring so it does not catch on the base of the pan.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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.

You might also like

Asparagus SaladAsparagus Salad77 recipesCream of AsparagusCream of Asparagus38 recipesBoiled AsparagusBoiled Asparagus27 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes